Bears extend winning streak to 4 with a 5-3 win over the Whale

Photo from Scott Stuccio’s twitter feed.

Tonight’s game actually got off to a little bit of an early start with puck drop at 6:59. The Bears came out strong, but ended up surrendering 3 penalties in the period. Fortunately the penalty kill units were stong as usual. On the one power play that the Bears had they were able to maintain good possession in the offensive zone. Graham Mink and Jacob Micflikier did a good job getting in the way of the Whale goaltender. There were some quality chances in front of the net. In the end, the Bears had more shots on goal an looked like the better team for the period.

The second period was a little more productive for the Bears. Tomas Kundratek opened up the scoring at 13:02 in the period with a nice wrist shot from just inside the Whale blue line. It found it’s way through traffic and into the back of the net. On their fourth power play of the game, the Bears were finally able to convert. The puck came around the top from Keith Aucoin to Chris Bourque. Bourque kept it going to Ryan Potulny who fired a one timer from the right circle past Chris Johnson. Both teams had some good chances in the period and both Johnson and Dany Sabourin made some big saves.

The third period started out much the same way that the second ended. The Bears kept up the pressure and that turned into 2 more goals. Bourque put one in on a one timer from the top of the right circle while the Bears were on a power play. Next was Matt Pope’s turn. A good forecheck ny Christian Hanson caused a turnover in the Whale zone. Hanson dealt the puck behind his back to Pope who fired it past Johnson. The Bears were carrying all the momentum. And what’s the best way to lose that? In this case it was allowing 2 Whale goals in just over a minute. Panic seemed to set in and the Bears struggled to settle down and regain control. This culminated in Hanson taking a high sticking penalty at 16:44. Shortly into the Whale power play, they scored bringing the Whale to within a goal. The Bears survived the rest of the period in part thanks to a Whale penalty and then capped it off with a Potulny empty net goal.

Tonight’s Notes:

• One of the big stories of the game was the Bears sticks. They seemed to be in the way of the Whale all night. The Bears did a great job playing team  defense.
• Both teams were playing a close game and not giving up many chances for the first half of the game.
• The Bears recorded another big second period with 2 goals. The second period has been good to them recently.
• The Bears penalty kill went 6 for 7 on the night and seems to humming right along.
• It was a quick game with a time of just 2:16.

Lines and Pairings:

Kane-Aucoin-Bourque
Micflikier-Potulny-Ford
Pope-Hanson-Mink
Lacroix-Carroll-Mitchell

McNeill – Collins
Brouillette – Flemming
Wellar – Kundratek

Three stars of the game:

1. Ryan Chris Bourque – CT HER
2. Ryan Potuly – HER
3. Mats Zuccarello – CT

These are according to the AHL game sheet. I’m not sure who was picking the stars of the game, but generally you don’t the first and third star in a loss. I guess the Connecticut press didn’t like the fact that they weren’t able to complete the comeback? I’m hoping that maybe they meant Chris Bourque as the first star. His brother Ryan was just about invisible all night. Ryan had no points, 1 shot and was a +1 for the night. Not exactly first star material.

UPDATE: Chris Bourque was the #1 star. Little mix up at XL Center tonight.