Home / News / Hershey Bears extend series lead to 2-0 over Charlotte Checkers as Connor McMichael scores highlight-reel spinning backhand

Hershey Bears extend series lead to 2-0 over Charlotte Checkers as Connor McMichael scores highlight-reel spinning backhand

By Chris Cerullo

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April 29, 2023 8:46 pm

The Hershey Bears defeated the Charlotte Checkers 5-1 in Game Two of their Division Semifinals matchup on Saturday. The Bears now hold a 2-0 series lead over Charlotte in the best-of-five series. Hershey will host the next three games of the series (if necessary) at Giant Center and need to win just one of them to move on to the Division Finals.

The Bears were led to victory by a sparkling performance from goaltender Hunter Shepard in net and a big three-goal third period kicked off by Caps top prospect Connor McMichael.

Garrett Pilon and Joe Snively both also contributed three-point nights. Snively kicked off the scoring for both teams on a power play early in the second frame.

Snively picked up the puck in the left circle with Hershey up a man and absolutely sniped it over the left shoulder of Checkers goaltender Jean-Francois Berube. Pilon and Aliaksei Protas factored in on the assists as they did some tic-tac-toe passing from below the red line and in the bumper position.

Despite being doubled up in shots by Charlotte, the Bears added another second-period tally. The play was kicked off by a good defensive zone check from Beck Malenstyn who fed the puck up the boards to Riley Sutter. Sutter then made a defender miss and fed Mason Morelli for an easy two-on-one wrist-shot marker.

Hunter Shepard was called upon early in the third to make a huge left-pad stop in tight on Aleksi Heponiemi. Shepard was starting his second game in as many nights.

Charlotte continued pressing after that, getting their first goal of the game from Ryan McAllister on a rebound. They limited Hershey to just 11 shots with 10:45 left in regulation.

Things exploded offensively from the Bears in response to their lead getting cut in half. The charge was led by McMichael who produced this phenomenal spinning backhand to the roof to score his second career AHL playoff goal in his second career AHL playoff game.

The goal was kicked off by some great forechecking work from McMichael, Pilon, and Snively.

Before the Checkers could fully recover from the shock of being back down two goals, Hershey was already on the board again. Just 23 seconds after McMichael potted his goal, Sam Anas finished one of his own.

Protas made the goal as he used his gigantic frame to win a puck battle behind the net and fed Anas who was alone in the slot for a quick shot.

Charlotte tried to pull their netminder in a desperate attempt to get back into the game with 5:55 left and down 4-1. McMichael put an end to any of their hopes as he won back-to-back defensive zone draws clean and Pilon iced the game with an empty netter to make it 5-1.

Notes: The Bears scored their five goals on just 16 total shots. Hunter Shepard stopped 19 of 20 shots for his second-straight postseason victory. Defenseman Aaron Ness was on the ice for three Bears goals and zero Checkers goals. The Bears won both games with the same forward lines and defense pairings.

Headline photo: Charlotte Checkers

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