Photo: Kyle Mace / Chocolate Hockey
For the second season in-a-row, the Hershey Bears will sport Groundhog Day jerseys for a game. Last year, the Chocolate and White became the Blue and Red with specialty jerseys to honor a very strange Pennsylvania tradition.
HERSHEY, PA – Jonathan Marchessault scores on Pheonix Copley in the shootout during Syracuse’s win on Saturday night (Kyle Mace / Chocolate Hockey)
Saturday night was a chance for the Hershey Bears to extend their winning streak to six games and hopefully extend their lead in the East Division. Unfortunately for Hershey, standing in their way was a tough Syracuse Crunch team who was looking to sweep the season series between these two teams with their fourth win against the Bears.
Allentown, PA – Philippe Cornet looks back at Connor Carrick’s second period goal, the 20,000th in Hershey Bears history (Kyle Mace / Chocolate Hockey)
Coming off of the AHL All-Star break, the Hershey Bears looked to extend their winning streak to five games and accomplish a first in American Hockey League history. The Bears had 19,997 goals going into their game against Lehigh Valley Friday night, needed three to get to 20,000.
HERSHEY, PA – Dustin Gazley points at Dane Byers after Byers’ second goal of Hershey’s 5-2 win over Lehigh Valley (Kyle Mace / Chocolate Hockey)
After a big win over Albany Saturday night, the Hershey Bears looked to extend their lead on their new first place lead in the East Division. Another five goal night did that for the Bears, giving them a 5-2 win over Lehigh Valley, and a three point lead at top of the East Division.
HERSHEY, PA – Chris Conner looks at Stan Galiev’s game winning overtime goal against Albany on Saturday night (Kyle Mace / Chocolate Hockey)
After one heck of a goal in the first period, Stan Galiev topped of his birthday with a game winning goal to put his Hershey Bears into first place.
HERSHEY, PA – Opening faceoff of Saturday night’s match up between Hershey and Albany Saturday night. (Kyle Mace / Chocolate Hockey)
One of the struggles the Hershey Bears have had this year is finding the back of the net. When the Bears score, they only score an average of two to three goals a game. When Hershey is able to put four goals on the board, they normally don’t have an issue with winning the game. But in the wonderful world of hockey, that’s not always the case.
Stan Galiev is a man on a mission and nobody is going to stop him. Only scoring seven points in his first two seasons in the AHL, the Moscow, Russia native has 19 points so far this season, including 12 goals. One of those goals, scored Saturday night against the Albany Devils, became automatic #SCTop10 worthy after his coast to coast, cut in front of the net, score, then get tripped, move put Hershey up 3-2.
Below the jump, check out the video of the play.
HERSHEY, PA – Nate Schmidt celebrates Casey Wellman’s goal in the second period of Hershey’s 3-1 win over Norfolk Saturday night (Kyle Mace / Chocolate Hockey)
After spending the first three months of the 2014-15 hockey season in the NHL, Nate Schmidt returned to Hershey for the weekend home-and-home with Norfolk. The 23-year-old defenseman has been a healthy scratched a few game in a row recently for Washington, and as Caps coach Barry Trotz said before their game vs. Detroit today, they want to get “to get Schmitty more touches” in Hershey this weekend.
HERSHEY, PA – Pheonix Copley goes to hugs Chris Brown after making his final save in the shootout against Wilkes-Barre/Scranton on Saturday night (Kyle Mace / Chocolate Hockey)
After Philipp Grubauer was injured in the Bears last game on New Year’s Eve, back-up goalie Pheonix Copley was set up to start against the Penguins where he hoped to get his second win against Hershey’s archrival. Sitting six points back behind the Baby Pens, the Bears hoped to get a quality start out of the young goalie and gain some ground on the first place team.
HERSHEY, PA – Casey Wellman celebrates his ninth goal of the season during Hershey’s 2-1 win over the Admirals (Kyle Mace / Chocolate Hockey)
Coming into a weird two game Tuesday-Wednesday back to back series of games for the Hershey Bears actually became a big two game set for the Chocolate and White. Coming into game one of two, Hershey was only four points behind first place Wilkes-Barre/Scranton with two games in hand. The Bears played one of those two games tonight, looking to gain some ground on the Baby Pens before facing off against them on New Year’s Eve.