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Hershey Bears shut out in Home Opener 3-0 by Belleville Senators after banner raising ceremony

By Chris Cerullo

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October 14, 2023 9:55 pm

The Hershey Bears did not start the 2023-24 campaign the way they wanted to. The Bears raised their 2023 Calder Cup championship banner to the rafters of Giant Center but couldn’t follow up those celebrations with any during regulation against the Belleville Senators.

Like their NHL parent club, the Washington Capitals, the Bears were shut out in their Home Opener. The final score was 3-0 in favor of the Baby Sens.

Belleville started the scoring as the Bears started to get too loose defensively halfway through the opening frame. Mike Sgarbossa was stripped of the puck at center ice by Cole Reinhardt and Reinhardt snuck in alone on goaltender Clay Stevenson. Defenseman Logan Day had tried to cheat up into the play so Reinhardt had a free run at Stevenson and slipped a backhand by the big netminder.

Outside of that poor spell of play, the Bears created most of the offense in the period. The debuting Ivan Miroshnichenko had four shots on goal by himself and the team led in that category 14-5 at the first intermission.

Miroshnichenko also got involved physically, earning a boarding penalty on former Bears forward Garrett Pilon. Dylan McIlrath pitched in his own impressive roughhousing as he sent Zack Ostapchuk to the shadow realm with a huge, open-ice hit.

The Bears got into some penalty trouble in the second, going down five-on-three twice in quick succession. Nikolas Matinpalo struck on the back half of the fourth penalty called on Hershey in that sequence. Matinpalo powered a one-time bomb past Stevenson.

Nothing went Hershey’s way in the third period either. Angus Crookshank was the only one to get on the scoresheet with an empty netter after about 17 minutes of play.

Mads Sogaard was tremendous in the Belleville net. He recorded his first career AHL shutout after stopping all 30 Hershey shots.

Game notes: Miroshnichenko, Hardy Haman Aktell, Pierrick Dube, Alex Limoges, Jimmy Huntington, and Chase Priskie all made their Bears debuts. Clay Stevenson started for Hershey as Hunter Shepard was out with an illness. Stevenson made 17 stops on 19 shots against.

Headline photo: Hershey Bears / Tori Hartman

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