Bears Fall in Regular Season Finale, Miss AHL Win Percentage Mark

The stage was set for the Hershey Bears Saturday night at Giant Center. A large crowd filled the Den to watch their team close out an historic regular season. 

On the checklist was just one more item for a team that clinched a playoff spot way back in mid-March. 

Tonight, the Bears finally had a curtain come down on one of their goals as they missed a chance at history with a 4-1 defeat to the Charlotte Checkers.

After a thrilling come from behind win against Charlotte on Wednesday to keep the dream alive, the Checkers came out with a chip on their shoulder. Two early goals tilted the ice towards the Checkers and Hershey never recovered.

Down two goals late in the third, Joe Snively put a charge into the Giant Center with a tally to make it 2-1 but a few empty netters ended the dream of a league record.

“The guys are disappointed, Charlotte is a big team, Charlotte is a fast team and spent a lot of time in our defensive zone creating a lot of offense,” said Nelson.   

“It is an eye opener for the guys to be quite honest and maybe that isn’t a bad thing because when we break down the video it is not going to be pretty,” he added.

Mike Vecchione was just as blunt as Nelson.

“It obviously sucks,” were his first words about the disappointment.

“We got out battled, outplayed so it sucks in that aspect we were so close we could’ve done it tonight but they were the better team tonight. We just didn’t show up for 60,” Vecchione said from the podium.

All that is left to do is move forward towards the biggest carrot left in the garden or as Nelson said, “It’s time to put the work boots on, winning a championship is never easy.”

No, a league record was not set but let’s not lose sight of the fact that this already was a historic season.

• Bears with a 53-13-5 record, 111 points for a .782 win percentage through 71 contests. Finish 53-14-5.

• First regular season in franchise history never losing back-to-back games in regulation.

• Clinched a franchise record for win percentage besting the previous record of .769 set by the 2009-10 team, which earned a still-unsurpassed 60 wins under an 80-game schedule.

• Won the Atlantic Division

• Earned the top seed in the Eastern Conference

• Claimed the AHL’s Macgregor Kilpatrick Trophy as the league’s regular-season champions for the 2023-24 campaign. This marks the first time the Bears have won the Kilpatrick Trophy since the abbreviated 2020-21 season, and the forth time overall since 1997 when the trophy was instituted. Ninth overall regular-season championship won by Hershey.

Those notes are just a few things that this group of Den Defenders accomplished. 

Into the final stretch of 18 games, then 12 games, then nine games head coach Todd Nelson was repeatedly asked what carrots were out there to motivate a team that seemingly was only playing against dusty record books or loaded PDF files.

Every time Nelson had a response. He wanted to see a team come together after a game in Utica. The Bears did.

He wanted to see a team respond to a tough stretch of schedule. The Bears roared.

Nelson wanted the team to play cleaner after a string of games with an uptick in penalties. The Bears did.

One last thing that the fan base and Nelson are asking for is 14 wins.   

The first task in that assignment may be on the road against this same Checkers team. So while no history was made tonight, you do look for positives and Mike Vecchione sums it up perfectly.

“It’s a wake up call, it adds fuel to the fire. Probably the best thing that could have happened to us is get smacked around tonight and kind of have a pissed off attitude all through the bye week and be chomping at the bit for game one.”

Now it’s a waiting game, for the Bears and the fans, as they begin the second season and the defense of the Calder Cup.