After Briefly Celebrating Championship, French Eager To Repeat Feat

By John Sparenberg jsheynow
@comcast.net

It’s been just over a month since the Hershey Bears, under the leadership of bench boss, Mark French, captured the franchise’s 11th Calder Cup Championship; while he was able to briefly rest on his laurels, the Washington Capitals’ recently concluded rookie camp signaled it was time to move ahead and start focusing on going for a three-peat.

“It seems like it’s been the blink of an eye, but it’s been good to enjoy it for a month. The rookie camp is kind of the official opening of the hockey season again for us. All you need is just a little bit of time off and then you’re ready to get it going again.”

With French behind the bench, the Bears have captured back-to-back Calder Cup titles in his two full seasons behind the pine, the first in 2009 as head coach Bob Woods’ assistant and the second in the recently concluded playoffs as the bench boss himself.

For French, whose previous head coaching experience was with the Wichita Thunder of the Central Hockey League, playoff success was not something he was familiar with prior to coming to Central Pennsylvania, as he had never guided the Thunder beyond the first round in two playoff outings.

Entering the 2009-10 season as a rookie head coach in the AHL, French had big shoes to fill trying to follow-up upon Woods successful act, but he thrived upon the pressure.

“Everything’s more highlighted and more intense at this level, and the quality of play is the highest I’ve ever coached at,” he said. “There’s a pressure to win from the organization, and from the fans here, but you find out that’s a really good thing because the organization does an excellent job of providing the players that you need to allow you to win.”

In the past, when faced with the same situation French encountered this season-being an assistant coach with a club one year and then ascending to the head coaching position the next-others have had difficulty making the transition. One of the great challenges of the switch in roles could be the scenario of having to call out a player for sub-par play whom they had to coddle when they were in the assistant’s position; however, thanks to his predecessor, someone who had experience making the same move, French’s transition seemed to be rather seamless.

“No, I don’t think there was (a period of adjustment), but the players might be the ones to ask,” chuckled French. “You do find that the losses probably hit you a lit bit harder when you are the guy making the final decisions, but I didn’t feel uncomfortable moving positions, and I give a lot of credit for that to Bob Woods for giving me so much responsibility when I was his assistant.”

Just as French’s move behind the bench went off rather smoothly, his new assistant, Troy Mann, managed to find comfort quickly behind the Hershey bench, with the two gentlemen rapidly finding a rapport with each other although they had never had a face-to-face meeting prior to the 2009-10 season.

“It’s funny because there wasn’t (an adjustment period),” commented French. “We had talked to each other on the phone before about hockey-related matters, but our paths had never really crossed. You take the recommendations of Bruce (Boudreau) and Bob (Woods) and they both thought that we would have good chemistry together and they were right. It didn’t take long for us to develop a good relationship and I thought he did an outstanding job this season.”

At Washington’s training camp prior to the beginning of the 2009-10 season, French told me, “You find out a lot about yourself in adverse situations. Everybody’s a good coach when things are going well and you have great players, but you truly find out a lot about your character and intestinal fortitude when things don’t go well.”

Those words certainly proved prophetic in the Bears’ Calder Cup matchup with the Texas Stars when the heavily favored Bears trailed the series, 2-0, after dropping a pair of home games at Giant Center where they had been practically invincible all season.

“ I had never seen our dressing room as low as it was after the second game, but it was a different mood the next morning where we met quietly as a group before leaving for Texas,” revealed French. “After that meeting, everything was positive and we were feeling very good about our chances of winning the series.”

After arriving in Texas, French said the players took it upon themselves to have a meeting of their own, with no coaches allowed, and although he did not name the player responsible for organizing the get together or what was said in it, French liked the ensuing results of the gathering.

“I don’t know what was said in that meeting, but I do know who held it, and he was the right person to do it. I believe a lot of the right things were said at that meeting, because there were a lot of things that changed after that point in time.”

In game three in Texas, even with the meetings that came after game two, the Bears found themselves trailing 3-1 midway through the game. At that point, French made what turned out to be a brilliant decision by dropping Alexander Giroux off the top line and onto a line with Jay Beagle and Mathieu Perreault, and elevating Chris Bourque to Giroux’s spot on the top line with Keith Aucoin and Andrew Gordon.

Those line changes had a dual effect, alleviating some of the pressure from Giroux’s shoulders, and also spreading out the Stars’ defense which had been so effective up until that point of shutting down the top line. The Stars defense never fully adjusted after the line juggling, and Giroux went on to score goals in each of the next two outings in the Lone Star State, including the overtime winner in game five, but in true French fashion, he refused to take all of the credit.

“I thought there was more than one turning point in the series; certainly the meetings played a part, but you could also say when we were down 3-1 in game three. Even as dire as the situation looked, you could not feel a sense of panic on the bench. When we came back in that game, we really gained a lot of confidence. If I had to pinpoint one thing, it would be battling back from that adversity of being down 3-1.”

If the Bears are to three-peat in the 2010-11 season, it will be without at least eight players, including goaltender, Michal Neuvirth, who were in the lineup for the clincher against Texas. However, French is quick to realize that for the most part, the player personnel decisions are out of his hands and in the very capable hands of the Bears/Capitals brain trust, who have made some quality additions to organization to compensate for the players that have moved on.

“Doug Yingst deserves a lot of credit, but honestly also guys like Brian MacLellan, the assistant GM in Washington and George McPhee (Washington’s GM), also do a great job of evaluating players. I think everybody knew that there would be a sizable transition of players this year, but it’s nice to see that we have gotten some quality individuals as well.”

“As a coach, we don’t get too involved in the player acquisition part of it. Other people do that, so as a coach you can refresh. You’ve got mixed emotions with some of the guys who are leaving, but also very motivated to do it again with another bunch of guys.”

Bears Trip Up Tigers Again

Though the Hershey Bears had limited experience with coming back from behind in games in the regular season, they’ve handled the challenge like pros in the first two games of the series against the Bridgeport Sound Tigers.

With their 3-2 victory on Friday night at Giant Center, the Bears take the 2-0 lead in the playoff series to Bridgeport this weekend for games three and four.

Bridgeport broke free for the first goal of the game when defenseman, Dustin Kohn, canned the rebound of his own shot by Michal Neuvirth at 16:14.

Although Kohn’s goal was the only one to hit the back of the net during the first period, there were plenty of other hits to go around as the Bears bruised the Tigers with numerous bone-crunching hits, most notably Andrew Gordon’s wallop on Bridgeport’s Mark Flood.

“I wanted to make sure I had good contact,” explained Gordon. “He was trying to one-time the puck and it was the kind of hit they have been talking about in the NHL these days, so I wanted to make sure I kept my elbow down and kept it shoulder on shoulder.”

Hershey’s high scoring duo of Keith Aucoin and Alexandre Giroux, the league’s leading and second leading point producers in the regular season respectively, tagged up to tie the game 16:32 into the middle frame. The sequence actually started with the twosome doing yeoman’s work along the boards and culminated with Giroux cleanly beating Sound Tigers’ netminder, Nathan Lawson.

“We have to make sure we win battles along the wall, and that’s why I got that goal,” said Giroux. “We put it deep and got the forecheck and we got the goal.”

The Sound Tigers, as was the case in game one when Andrew MacDonald struck late in the second period with a goal at the 19:59 mark, received a fortuitous bounce to take the lead at 19:15, when Kohn’s backhanded attempted pass pinged off the stick of Bears’ defenseman, Patrick McNeill, and then trickled through the pads of Neuvirth.

Kohn’s marker was the first power play goal of the series after the two teams combined for 22 unsuccessful attempts.

Giroux tied the game at two just 1:32 into the third period with his 25th career playoff goal as a Bear, and his 3rd of the current playoff season.

With an ailing Aucoin on the bench, and Lawson in the dressing room due to injury, Aucoin’s replacement on the power play unit, Mathieu Perreault, beat Lawson’s replacement, Scott Munroe at 7:06 to give the Bears a lead they would never relinquish.

“The puck was bouncing a little bit and I was looking to go to Helmer back door,” Perreault said. “The lane wasn’t there, so I just pulled it back and shot it short side because the goalie was playing the back door.”

Neuvirth, making just his 7th appearance in seven weeks, preserved the lead by making a glittering glove save on Flood just shy of halfway through the final period.

“My glove was working good tonight; pretty much every shot, they were going high glove for some reason,” said Neuvirth.

Gordon who contributed two assists to the winning cause and was named the number three star of the game, attributed his team’s two comebacks to the confidence level of squad.

“We have a lot of belief in ourselves,” he said. “We’ve won a lot of games in the last couple years, and a majority of us have been around for most of it, so we’re a team that knows how to win and deficits don’t really bother us. Tonight was a good testament to that.”

**PHOTO COURTESY OF JUSTSPORTS PHOTOGRAPHY**

Beagle Takes Bite Out of Sens

When a team win 55 games in a season like the Hershey Bears have entering Sunday’s matchup against the Binghamton Senators, logic dictates that they must find a myriad of ways to accomplish that impressive feat, and the Bears did just that it the contest.

The boys from Hershey, employing the “Oreo cookie approach” by sandwiching a creamy second period in the middle, in which they scored three goals in rapid fire succession, between dark first and third periods, ultimately emerged from the encounter with their 56th win, a 3-2 triumph.

Binghamton defenseman, Paul Baier, netted the only goal of the first period, canning the rebound of a Geoff Kincade point shot behind Hershey netminder, Braden Holtby.

Playing their third game in as many nights, the Bears could only muster seven shots on net in the first period, with Francois Bouchard’s bid at the buzzer the best of the bunch; they were unable to manage any sustained pressure against the stingy Senators defense.

“They played a bit of a different strategy tonight,” explained Hershey head coach, Mark French. “They were playing a 2-3, which meant that in the offensive zone, they sent two guys in and kept three guys back. I thought we struggled with that. We turned over the puck a lot coming through the neutral zone because there were even man situations...”

The Bears altered their approach from the outset of the second frame, putting immediate pressure on Binghamton netminder, Mike Brodeur, with Alexandre Giroux eventually getting the equalizing goal at 2:02.

Giroux’s goal, the 300th of his AHL career came with his parents in attendance after he was allowed to wander uninhibited to Brodeur’s doorstep. Brodeur, while able to beat back Giroux’s initial attempt, could not prevent his rebound attempt from finding paydirt.

“It was originally an odd man rush and Coiner took a shot and it got deflected into the corner,” said Giroux. “I saw Gordo getting the puck and the D overplayed it. I was able to get my own rebound and put it in on the far side.”

Andrew Gordon and Keith Aucoin were credited with the assists on Giroux’s goal; however, Karl Alzner, who absorbed a punishing check from Binghamton’s Jason Bailey just after he launched a long outlet pass to Aucoin, started the Bears march into the offensive zone and deserves an honorable mention for ‘taking one for the team’.

Less than a minute after the Giroux goal, the Bears sensed the kill against their wounded opponents and took their first lead of the night when Bouchard beat Brodeur at 3:00. Bouchard, by virtue of being on his off wing, was able to release a one-time rocket after receiving a pass from Kyle Wilson, something that would not have been possible were he on the left wing.

The Boys from Chocolate town finished off their bruising of Brodeur when Jay Beagle deflected a Bryan Helmer point shot home at 5:07 to give the Bears a 3-1 lead heading into the third period.

“There were so many people in front, and it was just bouncing off bodies,” Beagle said. “It could have hit my pants on the way. I just know it was hitting bodies and I got a piece of it; thank goodness it went in.”

While Beagle is not a goal-scoring machine like Giroux, when he finds the back of the net, he makes them count, as seven of his 14 goals of the season have been game winners.

“I didn’t even know I had that many game-winning goals. I just try to contribute to the team, if that’s getting a goal or trying to get some energy for the team,” said Beagle.

In the third period, the Bears and Holtby allowed a single strike by Jim O’Brien, but did not allow the B-Sens to garner the tying goal, even with Brodeur on the bench for an extra attacker in the final moments.