R. Bourque (Scott Payonk)
The Hershey Bears came away with three of a possible six points in their three-game weekend, capped off with a battle of Chris and Ryan Bourque on Sunday.
With the points, Hershey is still at .500 for the season, but find themselves in the bottom-half of the Atlantic Division. They host the top two teams, Wilkes-Barre/Scranton and Lehigh Valley, next weekend.
The Springfield Thunderbirds had never beat the Bears prior to Wednesday night. Hershey came in 7-0-0-0 all-time against the new team in the AHL’s headquarter city, and a 2-1 loss sent them on the road sour.
Dustin Gazley scored the lone tally for the Chocolate and White, Pheonix Copley stopped 25 shots.
In Hartford, the Bears needed three minutes to get on the board in a 4-1 win over the Wolf Pack. Hershey is now 2-0 against Hartford this season, and will not see the New York Rangers’ affiliate again until February.
Mathias Bau and Riley Barber scored the only goals neeed in the first period. Zach Sill and Mason Mitchell added their first goals of the year in the second, with Sill scoring shorthanded, to pad the lead and chase Hartford starter Chris Nell.
Alexandar Georgelev, a North American rookie from Belarus, stopped the last eight shots the Bears put on.
Hartford shot the puck 16 times in the third, with only Adam Tambellini scoring to spoil Vitek Vanecek’s shutout bid. Vanecek stopped 27 of 28.
If your name was not Bourque during Sunday’s game between Hershey and Bridgeport, all you could do was set up the goal scorers and wait for the shootout. The former teammates combined for all four regulation goals and one shootout goal in Hershey’s 3-2 loss to the Sound Tigers.
Chris Bourque scored his eighth and ninth goals of the season to give Hershey a 2-0 lead in the first stanza. His first goal moved him into sole possession of eighth all-time in team scoring, passing Ross Fitzpatrick.
Travis Boyd added his sixteenth and seventeenth assists with the goals, moving him one behind C. Bourque for the league lead.
Nine seconds after Chris’s second goal, brother Ryan got Bridgeport on the board.
Colby Williams and Connor Jones dropped gloves in the second period. It started with a shoving match along the boards, and ended with Williams dropping Jones to his knees and hitting him with an overhead right.
Hershey preserved the slim lead until a Huert Labrie slashing penalty put them shorthanded with one minute to go in the third. Ryan Bourque turned his opening of the night cheers to boos with 35 seconds left.
R. Bourque tipped a pass through the slot high on Copley for his third goal of the season to send the game to overtime.
Despite a too-many men penalty on the Sound Tigers in the three-on-three, the Bears needed a shootout to decide the extra point.
C. Bourque got one in the skills competition, only to see Tanner Fritz and Casey Bailey beat Copley to get out of Chocolate Town with an extra point for the Connecticut squad.
NEXT WEEK
All three games in this three-in-three are held in Pennsylvania. First is a Friday jaunt Allentown to face Lehigh Valley, then back to GIANT Center to see the Milwaukee Admirals and Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins.
CURRENT STANDING
6th Atlantic Division, 9-9-0-3 (W-L-OTL-SOL), .500 points percentage, 21 points
