Bears Roar to Game 1 Victory as Puck Drops on Calder Cup Playoffs
Hershey Survives Close Final Minutes, Takes 1-0 Series Lead Over Lehigh Valley
Luke Brown for Chocolate Hockey
After more than a week of no games for the Hershey Bears, the message from head coach Todd Nelson and AHL Coach of the Year, was clear: “Make them earn it.” “Them” refers to the first barrier in the road for the Bears’ quest to “Repeat the Roar”, the adopted slogan through the 2024 postseason. That barrier is the Lehigh Valley Phantoms, and “earning it” is difficult to do against a really hot Bears team going into the division semifinals. While the vast majority of the game seemed dominated by Hershey, leading in shots in both the first and second periods, the score and time were the only things that mattered down the stretch of the game.
After multiple shots and a nail biter to close things out, the Bears escaped with their first win of the 2024 Calder Cup playoffs, beating the Lehigh Valley Phantoms, 2-1.
“I was happy to get through the first period up by one. They came at us real hard, they’re a good hockey team, well balanced, and I thought we did a pretty good job.” said Todd Nelson following the win. “We’ve got some things to work on and clean up, there’s some mental errors we haven’t seen a whole lot during the course of the season, just from being off that long.”
To specify, it’s been eleven days in between games for the Bears, but Hershey wasted little time getting back to business in the first period. That was thanks to Hendrix Lapierre, who cannot relate to that dull week in Hershey, as his time has been spent in Washington with the Capitals. He made his debut in the Stanley Cup Playoffs on April 21 and scored his first NHL postseason goal on April 28 in the Capitals’ series against the New York Rangers. That was Sunday, and now, on Wednesday night, he’s back in Hershey scoring to take the lead in the first for the Bears. Chase Priskie and Ethen Frank are credited with the assist on that goal, which kept things at a 1-0 score for quite some time.
At the 9:59 mark in the second period, Henrik Rybinski got into a scrum with Lehigh’s Jon-Randall Avon, keeping both players out for two minutes, but nothing would come of the four-on-four play. It may very well have given Rybinski the competitive juice, if he needed any, considering he was also playing to score his first goal in a playoff atmosphere.
He would do just that seven minutes and 17 seconds later to extend the Hershey lead to 2-0, another dagger in Lehigh Valley as the game continued to seem relaxed for Hershey, and controlled by the Bears as well.
It would take until late in the final period to truly get everyone on the edge of their seats, as Lehigh Valley attacked consistently, putting 13 shots up in the third, only five less than they had in the first two periods combined.
Tanner Laczynski would finally land one of those shots, scoring with 5:32 left to play, making it a one-goal game with over five minutes. The assists came from Bobby Brink and Ronnie Atard, and the pressure was on for the AHL’s Goalie of the Year, Hunter Shepard to keep the net untouched down the final stretch of an all of a sudden nailbiting game.
Lehigh Valley got five shots on goal in the final 5:21, exerting oohs, ahs, and certainly gasps as the Hershey faithful watched in sweat as if the game had been moved out of GIANT Center and into Hersheypark Stadium on the warm May evening. Shepard made five saves in those last five minutes and change, five of 30 saves he’d tally up throughout the evening, coming in huge for Hershey multiple times.
“(Hunter’s) been like that the last couple years I’ve coached him” said Nelson of Shepard’s play. “Very simply put, he’s a gamer. He thrives in big games.”
“I’ve been through this quite a bit in the postseason. Today, there was a bit of nerves, for sure. We knew what we were up against, and also, we didn’t know how we were going to come out of the gates with the long layoff,” said Todd Nelson on nerves leading up to game one.
Hershey wins game one of the best-of-five series with Lehigh Valley. They are back in action again on Saturday at GIANT Center for a 7 PM puck drop.
SCORING:
1st – Hershey’s Hendrix Lapierre (Chase Priskie, Ethan Frank) – 3:29
2nd – Hershey’s Henrik Rybinski (Matt Strome, Bogdan Trineyev) – 17:17
3rd – Lehigh Valley’s Tanner Laczynski (Bobby Brink, Ronnie Atard) – 15:28
PENALTIES:
2nd – Jon-Randall Avon – Roughing, 2:00 – 10:01
2nd – Henrik Rybinski – Roughing, 2:00 – 10:01
GOALTENDERS:
LV – Cal Petersen – 58:30 – 26/28
HER – Hunter Shepard – 60:00 – 30/31
