Hershey Bears Highlights

The Hershey Bears defeated the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins 5-3 on the road Saturday night. Chris Bourque led the way for the Bears with two goals on the night, giving him 17 on the season. Andrew Gordon also tallied his 11th goal on the season and Daren Machesney had 22 saves for his 15th win. Check out the highlights from the 1st period, video courtesy of B2Networks.
(If you are having trouble playing videos on this site with firefox, try using windows explorer)

Capitals Sunday Practice Update

First a quick look at the lines for today's practice:

1. Red line - Ovechkin, Zubrus, Clark, plus Zednik who should play Tuesday in Ottawa
   
2. Teal line - Semin, Laich, Fehr
3. Yellow line - Pettinger, Gordon, Sutherby
4. Black line - Brashear, Beech, Clymer

Mike Green was the first to hit the ice 15 minutes before practice was scheduled to begin. He showed no signs of his recent ankle injury and seemed to be skating at 100%.

Once again Brian Pothier and Matt Bradley were not at practice today joining injured list members John Erskine and Brian Muir on the sideline.

The practice had a very technical feel to it and the team was treating it that way as, despite the big win last night, there was not a lot of hooting and hollering today. They started off with a forechecking drill where the center was responsible for pressuring the puck in the offensive zone while the two wings covered the side boards preventing the breakout pass. Next was an outlet drill that had a couple of variations to it, all of which ended up in a breakaway scoring chance. This was followed by a drill that focused on their quick breakouts as 2 defensemen were located on each side of the forward line. They would change directions a couple times before entering the offensive zone.

The next part of practice was the most heavily practiced drill of the day as they worked on their play in the corners. The exercise would last as long as the offense controlled the puck. There were three variations of this drill that included dividing the offensive zone into a smaller area. They were highly contested drills as there was a lot of hard hitting led by none other than Ovechkin. Jeff Schultz also knocked Brooks Laich to the ice, drawing a roar from the players. While this was going on, Kolzig and Johnson took turns working with goaltending coach Dave Prior on the other side of the ice.

The practice finished up with a 3 on 1 breakaway drill that also included a trailing defenseman. Ben Clymer had the prettiest goal in this exercise beating Johnson glove side that drew an applause from the nice crowd on hand. I would estimate that there was about 200 people there on this Sunday morning as the bleachers were mostly full.

After practice Jamie Heward brought his son out for a little mites on ice entertainment. I lost track counting the number of times he fell which was amusing.

The NHL returns today to NBC with a regional game at 3:30 PM ET. If you are a fan of hockey you should support the sport as we need all the ratings we can get. The local game in DC should be Philadelphia at Atlanta.

Down on the Farm:

Before a sellout crowd of 10,734 people at the Giant Center last night, the Hershey Bears took a 2 goal lead into the third period before falling to the Norfolk Admirals 4-3. Newly demoted Jakub Klepis scored his first AHL goal of the season and Chris Bourque added his 12th and 13th in the losing effort. It was the Bears second straight loss heading into the All-Star break as they are now 4 points behind the division leading Admirals.

Matt Stefanishion tied the game at 3 late in the third period and Donny Grover got the game winner in overtime as South Carolina rallied for a 4-3 win at the Texas Wildcatters. It was the third consecutive game in as many nights between the two teams. Davis Parley stopped 42 of 45 shots for the win in his fourth consecutive night of work including his game with Hershey on Wednesday. The Stingrays will take a much needed break and return to action on Friday night in Duluth, Georgia against the Gwinnett Gladiators.

Bears Finish Up Weekend With Victory

Hershey Dominates Division Rival Penguins for Complete 60 Minutes
Hershey Bears 4, Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins 1
Boxscore

Washington Capitals' mascot Slapshot was on hand to see the Hershey Bears completely dominate the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Peguins from the get go. The Peguins were playing their 4th game in 5 nights and it showed as the Bears jumped all over them from the moment the puck was dropped. Despite a Chad Wiseman hooking penalty just 46 seconds into the game, the Bears were able to grab possession of the puck. Dave Steckel took a pass from defenseman Dean Arsene at the red line and moved into the Penguins zone uncontested. He fired a wrist shot past goaltender Jeff Drouin-Deslauriers into the top right corner of the net for his 14th of the season to give the Bears a 1-0 lead just 1:01 into the game. The goal was the Bears' 17th short handed goal of the season.

Hershey would keep the pressure on the Penguins and scored their second goal of the game as their first power-play of the game expired. Jeff Schultz took a pass from Jakub Klepis at the point and fired a wrist shot just inside the blue line that deflected off Penguins' defenseman Tom Gilbert's left skate into the back of the net. It was Schultz's 2nd goal of the season in his first game back with Hershey after being reassigned by the Capitals for the All-Star break.

After their second goal, the Bears continued to control the action recording the first seven shots of the game and not allowing a Wilkes-Barre shot for the first six minutes of the game. They scored again after Chris Bourque controlled the puck in the Penguins corner and fired a shot towards the net with lots of traffic in front. Steckel was able to get a stick on the puck to deflect in his second goal and the game and 15th of the season. It was the Bears third goal in their first nine shots of the game.

It was a physical game, in front of 7,653 fans at the Giant Center, as a lot of scrums followed stoppages in play. Timo Helbling had the hit of the night, leveling Penguins' left winger Alexei Mikhnov on his back as he entered the Bears zone three minutes into the game. Heavyweights Deryk Engelland and Dennis Bonvie had a nice battle at the 11:35 mark of the first period. They exchanged some big blows before Bonvie connected on consecutive rights to knock Engelland to the ice.

The Penguins tried to get back in the game and got a short-handed goal at the 3:10 mark of the second period to cut the lead to 3-1. But they were unable to build any momentum off of that goal and the score remained the same until the 13:35 mark of the third period, when Chris Bourque deflected a Chad Wiseman shot from the point into the back of the net for his 11th goal of the season, giving the Bears the 4-1 win. The victory improved Hershey's record to 28-8-3-5, 64 points putting them three points ahead of the third place Penguins, and three points behind the first place Norfolk Admirals.

Your Top 3 Stars of the Game:
1. Dave Steckel, Hershey 2 goals, 1 assist
2. Jeff Schultz, Hershey 1 goal, 1 assist
3. Chris Bourque, Hershey 1 goal, 1 assist

Game Notes: Bears coach Bruce Boudreau announced today that Maxime Daigneault could be out a couple days or a couple weeks with what is being described as a lower body injury. To take his place on the roster Hershey recalled Davis Parley from the South Carolina Stingrays who was on hand to backup Daren Machesney today.... Jamie Hunt, Marc Busenburg, Joey Tenute, and Alexandre Giroux were scratched from the lineup.... The Bears continuously used Jakub Klepis at the point on the power play's first unit.... Hershey currently leads the league in penalty minutes as a team with 1180.