Sabourin Rebounds With Stellar Win Over Penguins

Photo courtesy Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins Facebook page

Many are familiar with the popular song lyrics, “Anything you can do I can do better”. Thursday Braden Holtby was given an off day leading to Dany Sabourin’s first start in 20 days. A night after Holtby posted a 33 save shutout against the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins, Sabourin answered with a stellar performance of his own. He stopped 26 of 27 shots en route to a 4-1 victory over the Pens.

Similar to the night before, Hershey opened up the scoring early against the W-B, and once again it was Garrett Mitchell. At the 3:32 mark, Mitchell scored his seventh goal of the campaign, fourth alone against the Penguins.

Unlike the night before, the Bears would buy insurance much sooner and pad the early lead. With 14:10 left in the second period, Jeff Taffe dropped a pass to Steve Oleksy on an offensive zone rush. Oleksy moved forward and unleashed what the voice of the Bears Scott Stuccio described as a “Wicked Wrister” about 10 feet away from Jeff Zatkoff to give Hershey a 2-0 lead.

With 1:52 remaining in the middle frame, the Chocolate and White turned to the power play unit to add a third goal. Moments after Boyd Kane missed a wide-open net off a back-door feed, Mathieu Beaudoin tallied on Zatkoff to give the Bears a 3-0 lead into the dressing room after 40 minutes.

After two periods Jeff Taffe tallied two helpers to take over the AHL lead in assists with 25. Hershey’s penalty kill unit also extended their streak to 21 consecutive kills through 40 minutes.

Wilkes-Barre Head Coach, John Hynes before the third period replaced Jeff Zatkoff with Brad Thiessen. After two periods Zatkoff yielded three goals on only 15 shots.

Into the third period, Wilkes-Barre began to knock on the door and threatened to climb back into the contest. After an Evan Barlow double-minor, Paul Thompson scored for the Penguins on the first half of the four minute infraction to end Hershey’s penalty kill streak.

Thompson’s shot redirection goal at the 4:52 mark also ended Sabourin’s bid for his first shutout of the season. However before Brad Thiessen could leave his crease for the extra attacker, Boyd Kane roofed an insurance goal with 1:26 remaining to ice a 4-1 win over the I-81 rivals. The Bears are now 6-1 against the Flightless Birds this season.