Monday’s Eastern Conference Playoff Picture 3/4/13

Welcome to the second edition of Monday’s Eastern Conference Playoff Look in. Seven weeks from today, the banner on top of the Hershey Bears web site will likely either say “Thank you fans”, or will be promoting an upcoming playoff series.

Sunday the Bears capped off their most impressive weekend this entire season. On Friday Hershey rode I-81 and payed visit to the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins. Following a hot start leading to three goals in the game’s first ten minutes, the Bears held off a Penguins’ late game comeback attempt to secure a 3-2 road win.

It has been noted by Head Coach Mark French that during the All-Star break, the team set several goals for themselves in hoping to improve play. French mentioned one of the goals was to raise the home ice record back to the .500 standings mark.

On Saturday night in a stunning third period comeback win over the Norfolk Admirals, the Bears pulled to an even home record of 13-13-3-2. The next day, Hershey looked to climb another mountain by beating the Eastern Conference leading Syracuse Crunch. In three attempts this season, the Bears have lost to Syracuse each game. Yesterday Cameron Schilling tallied a third period game winning goal leading to a shocking 5-3 win over the Crunch.

With a sudden three wins in three nights, the Hershey Bears leaped over the Penguins in the East Division standings.

As of Monday, March 4, 2013, the East Division standings are as follow:

1. Syracuse Crunch………….     (34-16-3-4) 75 Points
2. Binghamton Senators……. (33-17-1-5) 72 Points
3. Hershey Bears……………….. (28-21-3-5) 64 Points
4. W-B/Scranton Penguins… (30-24-2-1) 63 Points
5. Norfolk Admirals…………     (25-26-3-1) 54 Points

Around the East Division:

This previous weekend was one the Syracuse Crunch want to quickly forget. Out of six possible standings points, the Crunch only earned one over the weekend in an overtime loss to the Rochester Americans. The loss to the Amerks’ was sandwiched in between regulation losses to the Albany Devils and the Hershey Bears.

For the Binghamton Senators the weekend started on Friday with a slim 3-2 win over the Hamilton Bulldogs north of the border. The next day the B-Sens played the first of back-to-back matches against the Toronto Marlies. On Saturday the B-Sens won by a 4-2 final, but the next afternoon dropped a 2-1 decision in a shootout.

The Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins battled on Friday and Saturday and rested Sunday with an off day. After being disappointed at home by the Bears on Friday night, the Pens rebounded back the next day with a six round shootout victory over Albany.

Lastly the Norfolk Admirals on Friday manhandled a top-notch Charlotte Checkers team 6-2 a night before being upset by Hershey at Giant Center in the final minute. The only overall change in the East Division standings from last week to now is Hershey jumping over Wilkes-Barre/Scranton.

Eastern Conference Top 10:

The numbers highlighted in yellow represent which teams are housed in the East Division. You can see if the season ended today, four of the division’s five teams would qualify for the postseason. The line underneath the eighth seeding represents the cutoff for playoff qualification.

Out of Hershey’s 19 remaining games this season, eleven of those duels are against teams currently in the Eastern Conference Top 10.

The Bears return home on Sunday March 10 against the Binghamton Senators following back-to-back road games in Norfolk, Virginia. Those will be the final two Bears-Admirals games this season.