Bears Bounce Phantoms 02.24.13

By: John Sparenberg

When the Adirondack Phantoms called Philadelphia their home, weird things would happen often when they faced the Hershey Bears. There was the episode in Philadelphia when current Bears’ captain Boyd Kane, then skating for the Phantoms, scored a goal when he should have still in the penalty box serving out his sentence, but was instead granted an early, illegal release from his penalty sentence.

Then there was the time with a playoff berth on the line, the game in overtime, and the Bears’ goaltender pulled for an extra attacker. Their season and playoff hopes vanished in heartbreaking fashion when Shane Willis’ pass to a teammate failed to connect and the puck bounced off the boards at center ice at Giant Center and into the Bears’ vacated net.

However, since the Phantoms relocated to upper New York State, such occurrences have been rare, mostly due to the clubs not facing off against each other as often as a result of the Phantoms’ move north. But last night at Giant Center, the ghosts of games past revisited the clubs in the Bears’ 3-0 win over the Phantoms at Giant Center.

Former Phantom Matt Clackson, who nailed former Bear Danny Syvret into the end boards on his first shift of the game, laid a hearty hit on Phantoms’ defenseman Brandon Manning seconds later, and then subsequently duked it out with Manning in a spirited bout in which he gained a narrow decision, indirectly figured into the Bears’ first goal of the game when he was whistled off for an interference infraction at 12:41 of the opening frame.

With Clackson cooling his heels in the penalty box and the Phantoms on their first power play of the contest, things were moving along rather uneventfully as Hershey the defenseman gathered the puck in his own zone and fired an innocent-looking clearing pass down the ice, but at right about the same spot on the ice where Willis’ wayward pass struck the boards, the puck took a wild bounce, changed directions, and then slowly slithered into the Phantoms’ net which had been vacated by goaltender Scott Munroe who had ventured behind the net to play the clearing pass that never reached him.

“It was quite a goal,” Hershey’s head coach Mark French joked of the tally, eliciting a chuckle from the assembled media at his post-game press conference. Then French expounded on McNeill’s reaction to adversity this season, first on the shorthanded goal that his miscue led to on Friday night in Binghamton and then on his early season struggles to maintain a constant presence in Hershey’s lineup.

“Patrick is the longest serving consecutive member of this team,” explained French. “I think it’s safe to say when Patty was first breaking into the organization, the one thing he had to work on was mental toughness. It wasn’t his fault on the shorthanded goal; he mishandled it and it went down. That would have rattled a young Patrick McNeill, but he was able to steady himself and come back and help score a power play goal immediately after. I think you see a lot more maturity (in him); we all know we’re hardened by the adversity that we face, and Patrick obviously faced a little this year and has approached it the right way and has regained tremendous resolve, and I think everybody can be happy for him.”

McNeill, lending credence to French’s claims and showing the maturity that his coach spoke of, said the “Binghamton bobble” was just part of the game, and he quickly moved on from the episode.

“Those things happen; obviously when playing on the power play, shorthanded goals happen from time to time. It’s not something you want to happen, but when it does, you’ve got to get right back out there, be a professional and do my job and play the game. I was pretty fortunate to be able to come back and assist on those goals last night and help us squeak out a point, and obviously I was pretty fortunate with that bounce tonight.”

McNeill continued, “This season hasn’t gone the way I would have liked it to, but now that I’m in there getting my chance, I’m just trying to do the things that I do best out there. I’m a big believer in if you do the right things, good things will happen, and things have been going pretty good for me lately, so I’m pretty happy.”

Meanwhile, goaltender Philipp Grubauer had a relatively quiet opening frame, stopping all seven salvos he faced, and the one he didn’t stop, a shot from NHL veteran and former Philadelphia Phantom, Jon Sim, a member of their 2005 Calder Cup winning club, was ruled to have been kicked in by Sim and was waved off.

Exactly fifteen minutes into the middle frame, Ryan Potulny potted a power play goal, his ninth marker of the season to give the Bears a rare two-goal lead, a lead that was preserved in spectacular fashion in the waning minutes of the period when Grubauer made a scintillating, stretching skate save on Garrett Roe’s attempt to beat him on the glove side.

Ryan Stoa’s power play strike at 10:42 of the third stanza essentially put the game out of reach for the visitors, but Grubauer made another quality save on Roe with just over five minutes remaining to play to put an exclamation point on his first career American Hockey League shutout, a masterful 40-save performance.

“We’ve been lucky all year having Braden (Holtby), Dany (Sabourin) and Philipp; they are all great goaltenders and that gives you a lot of confidence as a team, especially our defensive corps. That’s shown by our goals against average which has been a good stat for us this year, and our whole team takes pride in that, but that starts and ends with the guy in the net and we have been very fortunate to have three quality guys back there,” said McNeill.


Notes-

The Phantoms and Bears are scheduled to meet twice more this season, once more at Giant Center and once more at the Glens Falls Civic Center.

Former Bear, Matt Ford, who was dealt to the Phantoms by the Bears last February for Kevin Marshall, was a scratch for the visitors.

The Phantoms are coached by former Washington Capitals and Baltimore Skipjacks head coach, Terry Murray. Terry’s brother Bryan, currently the General Manger of the National Hockey League’s Ottawa Senators, coached the Bears before being elevated to the same position with the Caps.

Grubauer had one prior professional shutout with the Bears’ former East Coast Hockey League affiliate, the South Carolina Stingrays in the 2011-2012 season, a 26-save whitewashing of the Toledo Walleye.

Pens Prey on Bears

When one considers the proximity between their respective cities, it’s not much of a surprise that the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins have made Giant Center their unofficial home away from home. On Saturday night at the aforementioned venue, the visitors continued their recent mastery over the Hershey Bears and skated away with a convincing 3-1 win.

The Penguins, who with this victory have now won six straight outings against their Keystone State neighbors to the north, improved to 3-2-1-1 on the season while the Bears, who are a perfect 4-0 on the road, slipped to 0-1-1-0 at home with the setback.

Brian Gibbons, who scored the baby Pens’ first goal in their 3-2 loss to the Bears earlier in the season at Mohegan Sun Arena at Casey Plaza in the only prior meeting between the clubs on this young season, replicated that feat at 3:36 of the first period by deflecting a Jason Williams point shot by Hershey goaltender Braden Holtby while the visitors were on a power play.

The first period foretold the futility that the Bears would endure in this encounter as they failed to establish a prolonged presence in the Pens’ zone despite their 17 shots on net; Hershey also short-circuited one of their two extra-man advantages by taking a penalty of their own.

Holtby, who had a shaky outing in the Bears’ home opener a week ago, kept his club in the game in the first period by stopping 13 shots, including close-range bids from Gibbons (right pad save) and Colin McDonald (left pad, shorthanded) in the latter stages of the stanza.

Early in the second period, the Pens were pestering Holtby again, but he was up to the challenge and made a couple of early saves with some help from defenseman Patrick McNeill, who swept a puck out of danger when Holtby left a rebound in his crease.

However, the pesky Pens eventually doubled their lead when Penguins’ defenseman Simon Despres made it 2-0 at 7:19. Despres’ dart, which occurred with the teams skating at four aside, came only 29 seconds after Graham Mink derailed a Bears’ power play by committing a tripping infraction.

Bryan Lerg lengthened the Pens lead to 3-0 at 10:45 of the second period when he finished off a picturesque give-and-go sequence with Paul Thompson.

Hershey captain Boyd Kane thwarted Brad Thiessen’s bid for a shutout late in the third period by canning his second goal in as many days to make it 3-1 with a power play marker, but Kane’s caper would be all of the offense his club could muster on the evening.

Notes- Thiessen pitched a 26-save shutout on Friday night in Springfield against the Falcons.

With Dany Sabourin still on recall to the Washington Capitals, Holtby made his third straight start for the Bears.

The Bears scratched defensemen Danny Richmond and Brett Fleming and forwards Maxime Lacroix, Joel Rechlicz, Ryan Potulny and Kyle Greentree.

The Bears have now given up the first goal of the game in their last two games after scoring the game-opening goals in the prior four contests.

Hershey’s first period blanking was the first time season they failed to score in the first period and also marked the first time this season that they faced a deficit after 20 minutes of play.

Chris Bourque, who leads the league in shots on goal, registered only a single shot on net in this game, but did extend his point streak to six games with an assist on Kane’s goal, while his linemate Keith Aucoin saw his five-game point streak come to an end.

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**