(Chris Bourque, via the Bears)
With just three games and two points left to win the Atlantic Division, the Hershey Bears only needed two games to wrap up the top-seed in the Atlantic bracket.
Before the week, the American Hockey League announced Bears forward Chris Bourque as the Les Cunningham Award for the Most Valuable Player. He is the seventh different Bear to win the award, joining Keith Aucoin, Alexandre Giroux, Jean-Francois Labbe, Tim Tookey, Mike Nykoluk and George “Red” Sullivan.
The Bears power play struggled all week, going a combined 2-for-19, including 0-for-4 against the Binghamton Senators on Friday night. The last-lace team in the North Division rode Matt O’Connor to a 20 save win.
Zach Sill scored a goal that made him look more like Bourque — a breakaway with a forehand-backhand move to beat the goaltender — to put the Bears on the board first. A late goal from Max McCormick at 19:03 of the first gave the Senators a much needed boost.
Riley Barber was robbed by the post earlier, but his slot shot hit the crossbar and bounced down for another Bears’ lead. The advantage lasted 9:40 when Matt Peumpel tapped-in a Jason Akeson pass.
In the third, the early goal went to Ryan Rupert and the Sens did not look back. Then Phil Varone scored an empty-net goal at 19:00 even, even though Varone was offside “by a country mile” as Scott Stuccio put it when the shot came in. Captain Garrett Mitchell was tossed from the last minute of play for Abuse of Officials.
After a 26 save performance from Dan Ellis, head coach Troy Mann went with Justin Peters for the penultimate home game against Lehigh Valley. The former Caps backup made 26 saves to lock up the Atlantic Division for the Chocolate and White.
Barber again got the night going with a low shot past Anthony Stolarz for his 26th goal of the season. His opening tally was cancelled out by Dalton Smith. Smith took the puck from a lively deflection off the GIANT Center boards and put it behind Peters before he could get there.
The Phantoms took the lead on a goal eventually awarded to Steven Swavely, but it would take a considerable time to review. Peters fell back in the net with the puck under him and video review confirmed the puck did cross the line.
After spending well over a minute in the Phantoms zone, blocking three clearing attempts, Ryan Stanton hit Travis Boyd to even the score. From here, the Bears kept their intra-state rivals off the board and limited in their chances.
Sill set-up himself on top of Stolarz and received the benefit of Mitchell and Liam O’Brien creating a turnover. Sill assisted on the late empty-netter from Sean Collins, as did C. Bourque, to finish off the division. Sill took a victory lap for the GIANT Center crowd after being named First Star.
With the Atlantic wrapped up and unable to break any more records, Mann opted to sit many of his stars, including both goaltenders, Stanton, and C. Bourque. Vitek Vanecek was recalled from ECHL South Carolina to make his AHL debut in the season finale against the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins.
Vanecek, a third-round selection of Washington (2014), enters the AHL with a 2.03 goals against average (2nd in ECHL), a .917 save percentage, and four shoutouts in 32 appearances for the Stingrays.
The Havlickuv Brod, Czech Republic native stopped 25 of 26 shots from the Penguins, only allowing a Dustin Jeffery goal late in the third.
Jakub Vrana paced the Bears in shots with four, one of which went in on the power play for Hershey to start the third period. Past that, no Bear could beat Casey DeSmith in net.
That made it all the stranger when DeSmith left the game with an apparent injury and was replaced by recently-departed Boston University senior Sean Maguire. Maguire won the starting job for the Terriers from sophomore Connor LaCouvee and shined in the second half of the season, starting almost every game after the Christmas break. BU rode him all the way to the NCAA Tournament, where they bowed out after a 7-2 loss to Denver.
This year’s Beanpot MVP stopped all four shots he faced in his professional debut while wearing his solid red mask leftover from BU.
Despite a carry-over 5-on-3 power play for Hershey, they managed a single shot in the overtime and needed a shootout.
Vanecek stopped Carter Rowney and Jeffery while Maguire only stopped Vrana, allowing Chirstian Djoos and Barber to score for the win.
Seth Griffith of the Providence Bruins scored two assists in the final game, falling three short of C. Bourque’s 80 for the John B. Sollenberger regular-season scoring title.
CALDER CUP PLAYOFFS
The Hershey Bears will open on the road against the Portland Pirates in the first round of the Calder Cup Playoffs. The Bears have opted for a 2-3 format, electing to play Games 3, 4, and 5 at GIANT Center in the best-of-5 series.
Hershey and Portland played four times this year, all in the first two months of the season, with the home team winning each time.
The full schedule is as follows:
Game 1 – Fri., Apr. 22 – Hershey at Portland, 7:00
Game 2 – Sat., Apr. 23 – Hershey at Portland, 7:00
Game 3 – Thu., Apr. 28 – Portland at Hershey, 7:00
*Game 4 – Sat., Apr. 30 – Portland at Hershey, 7:00
*Game 5 – Sun., May 1 – Portland at Hershey, 5:00
*if necessary… All times Eastern
