Hershey Bears Weekly Notebook 10/28/22

HERSHEY, Pa. - After a strong start in week 1, the Hershey Bears (2-1-1) showed lots of promise but dropped a pair of one-goal games on the road against the Charlotte Checkers (4-0-0) despite opening both games with leads.

Last Week

Friday, October 21: Hershey - 4 at Charlotte - 5

On Friday night, the Bears jumped out to a 3-0 lead with first period goals from Sam Anas and Riley Sutter (shorthanded) and a second period goal from Garrett Pilon, but five unanswered goals gave the Checker all the scoring they would need despite a last-second 6-on-5 goal from Henrik Borgstrom.

Discipline and special teams (penalty kill) seemed to be areas of concern as the Checkers scored a pair of power play goals.

Zach Fucale made 19 saves in the 5-4 defeat.

Saturday, October 22: Hershey - 2 at Charlotte - 3 (OT)

On Saturday Hershey once again jumped out to an early lead with Ethen Frank scoring his first of the season, but the Checkers tied the game before the end of the first period.

In the second, newcomer Sonny Milano scored on the power play to put Hershey back in front, but once again, the Checkers tied the game before the horn ended the second period.

After the teams battled scoreless through the third, it was Charlotte who got the walk-off game-winner in overtime as the Bears left Charlotte with one point on the week.

Hunter Shepard made 31 saves in the 3-2 OT loss.

The Week Ahead

Friday, October 28: Hershey at Hartford, 7:00 p.m. ET Saturday, October 29: W-B/Scranton at Hershey, 7:05 p.m. ET Sunday, October 30: Lehigh Valley at Hershey, 5:00 p.m. ET

Hershey is in Hartford for the first game of a three-in-three which will see the Bears return to Giant Center on Saturday night to host the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins before a Sunday evening match-up with Lehigh Valley.

Quotable

Head Coach Todd Nelson from Week 1

"Well.. we want everybody to have some sort of role. The team, you know, we have power play guys and we have penalty kill guys. In those situations, I still got to figure that out. I'm getting to know the players. They have to, you know, we have to gain trust with each other. And you know that their play is going to dictate that. And it depends on who's winning face-offs. And so, as we move along here, you know, I felt that all of our guys could play in those situations where I work with some guys that killed penalties that feel comfortable in that situation."

Team Leaders

Points - Mike Vecchione, Mason Morelli - 4

Goals - Vecchione, Borgstrom, Sutter - 2

Assists - Morelli - 4

Penalty Minutes - Bobby Nardella, Aaron Ness, Morelli - 4

Saves - Fucale - 58

Save % -Shepard - .912 (20th in AHL)

GAA - Fucale - 2.02 (T-15th in AHL)