Hershey’s Weak Finish Results in SO Loss to Lake Erie

Braden Holtby looks in disbelief at the replay. Photo by Kyle M.

A sold-out crowd gathered in Giant Center tonight to watch the Bears take on the Lake Erie Monsters. It was the only time we will see the Monsters in Hershey this season.

The game started off perfectly. Hershey scored the first goal early in the first period, as they often do. Lake Erie had two men in the box and Hershey had a 5-on-3 power play for thirty seconds. After getting roughed up, Keith Aucoin made the Monsters pay by scoring on the man advantage.

A few minutes into the second period, Ashton Rome recorded his sixth goal of the season. Tyler Sloan had a nice role in the play, joining the rush as a winger. Along with Maxime Lacroix, they got the puck to the goal. John Grahame made the initial save but Rome buried the rebound.

Perhaps getting a little too comfortable, the scoring ended there for Hershey. Meanwhile, Lake Erie started to kick it in gear. They cut Hershey’s lead in half before the end of the second period. Holtby couldn’t see the rebound and Lake Erie got their first goal of the night. With about a minute to go in the game, Lake Erie pulled their goalie. With an extra man, the Monsters got a lot of traffic in front of the Hershey goal and tied it up with just 40 seconds left in the game.

Overtime didn’t solve anything and so it went to the shootout. Unfortunately, the Monsters scored twice and Hershey could only score once.

Despite the loss, Braden Holtby was fantastic in net. It would have been a whole different game without him. He was there to make all the huge saves that the Bears needed him to make. I’m sure a shootout was not how the Bears wanted to end this game, especially with an early game in Binghamton tomorrow. Nevertheless, the Bears watch the game slip through their fingers and lose 3-2.

Tonight’s Notes:

• Andrew Gordon was not in the line-up today. He was called up to Washington after Eric Fehr was injured in their last game.
• As I touched on above, the game was completely sold out. The official attendance was listed at 10,882.
• Joel Rechlicz did not seem much playing time at all but he did fit in a fight! He dropped the gloves with Patrick Bordeleau. It took quite a while for the fight to start and then it ended after a couple punches. I’ll call it a draw.
• The penalty kill unit had another great night, killing off all four of Lake Erie’s power plays.

Video Highlights:

Lines and Pairings:

Kane – Aucoin – Pinizzotto
Greentree – Willsie – Bouchard
Lacroix – Joudrey – Rome
Kugryshev – Kashirsky – Rechlicz

Sloan – Miskovic
P McNeill – Collins
Kroll – Fahey

Actual three stars of the game:

1. Patrick Rissmiller (LE)
2. Ben Walter (LE)
3. Braden Holtby (HER)

Sweetest Hockey On Earth’s three stars of the game:

1. Holtby: stopped 22 shots to get his fourth shutout of the game
2. Aucoin: goal
3. Rome: goal