Questions still loom around Hershey Bears goaltending situation
To any outsider, Saturday’s 7-2 loss to Lehigh Valley could be viewed as a “rocky start” to the season, but when you look between the lines, the loss isn’t as bad as it might seem.
“I take responsibility for those last two goals,” said head coach Troy Mann after Tuesday’s practice. “Once [Greg] Carey made it 5-2, I should have shut that game down. But you’re always thinking, and you know we’ve worked on the five on six, six on five a little bit last week. I said ‘You know what, let’s maybe work on our six on five for the last two minutes of the game.’ Unfortunately, it didn’t play out very well because we lost a draw and next thing you know, five seconds later it’s in the back of our net. Then it snowballed with another goal.
“That’s how it ended up being 7-2, but realistically it was 4-2 with a little two minutes left in the game and we’ve addressed that with the players.”
Hershey is still trying to find that identity a new team always has, even though there are over a dozen returning players this season. “We’re going to pound the video from that first game all week here. We did some video this morning showing our offensive zone concepts. Not only is it a refresher for the 13 or 14 returning players, but it gets the new guys knowing how we want to play and how we want to build our team identity.”
Juggling a talented blue line
Currently, the Bears have eight defensemen on their roster. Half of those eight players are rookies this season. That puts Mann in a tough position to manage a line-up, as at least two rookies will have to be scratched every few games to start the season. For Connor Hobbs, it was his turn to get scratched to start the season. “We have a plan in place starting early,” said Mann. “Hobbsy knew three days before the opening that he was the first guy. Had nothing to do his play, we just wanted to go with the three left, three right match-up. He was the first rookie to sit. There will be another rookie sit Saturday, and another rookie Sunday and then we’ll reassess going into the three in threes.”
Veterans won’t be exempt from being scratched either. Hubert Labrie could find himself in a suit upstairs for a couple of games this season. “A guy like Hubie Labrie who was signed here and was under the understanding coming in that we were going to have three, pretty good rookie defensemen that were going to have to get their ice time. There’s going to be some growing pains with them. He’ll probably take his turn as well. Once we get deeper in the season obviously top six will play in that seventh and potentially eighth guy will have to battle for ice time.
“We’ve got our work cut out for us in that area, there’s no doubt about it.”
Goaltending still a question mark
Both Pheonix Copley and Vitek Vanecek were scratched for the Bears season opener, and it doesn’t look like we’ll see them this weekend either. “We’re looking to get an update here,” said Mann on Tuesday. “Doctors here right now and that’s my next move to go meet with him. Both goalies are to be determined in terms of their status.”
The team confirmed Thursday that both Copley’s status and Vanecek’s status are week-to-week with lower-body injuries and are not expected to play this weekend. The two were working on the ice after the team photo shoot on Tuesday but were not present for the full team practice. Parker Milner and Adam Carlson will man Hershey’s nets for now.
“It’s a very difficult time right now for us – obviously both our number one and number two are out and hopefully we get one of those guys or even both back sooner rather than later.”
