This article is over 2 years old

Hunter Shepard gets first shutout of the season in 1-0 victory over Springfield

by

0 Comments

Share:

The Hershey Bears defeated the Springfield Thunderbirds 1-0 at home Sunday afternoon in the first matchup between the teams this season. The two will face off again in five days in Springfield. The Bears are now 22-6-0 this season and remain first in the league.

Goaltender Hunter Shepard pitched his first shutout of the campaign against the Thunderbirds, stopping all 18 shots to earn First Star of the Game.

Springfield’s roster featured two familiar faces for Bears fans, with former Capitals Jakub Vrana and Nathan Walker both returning to Giant Center. Vrana was playing in just his second game with Springfield since clearing waivers on December 13. He had two shots on the night.

Tensions began to flare up early in the first period. A tough hit on Matt Strome less than four minutes into the game by Thunderbirds forward Sam Bitten led to a fight between Dylan McIlrath and Bitten. McIlrath laid a relay of right hooks to the face of Bitten, knocking him to the ground after a 33-second bout.

The rest of the first period featured back-and-forth play between the teams with both goaltenders making great stops, including one that saw Shepard make a save before batting the puck out of the air with his stick.

The second period was another brick-wall showing, with Shepard and Malcolm Subban continuing to make save after save for their respective teams. Shepard’s strong performance continued into the third, where he stopped a relay of Thunderbirds shots early in the period.

Pierrick Dube finally broke through to the net for the Bears 5:31 into the third period, firing a rocket at Subban from the right circle. The puck got caught in Subban’s jersey and fell, trickling back into the net.

The Thunderbirds drew a power play chance during the third but could not get the puck past Shepard and the Bears’ defense. Shepard held steady for the rest of the game, sending the Thunderbords home with a 1-0 loss.

Here are the highlights:

Here is the game recap from the Bears via press release:

BEARS GRIND OUT 1-0 WIN OVER THUNDERBIRDS

Dubé scores lone goal for Hershey while Shepard records 18-save shutout

(Hershey, PA – Dec. 17, 2023) – Pierrick Dubé broke a 0-0 deadlock early in the third period, while Hunter Shepard earned his first shutout of the season to push the Hershey Bears (22-6-0-0) to a 1-0 win over the Springfield Thunderbirds (14-9-2-0) in front of a crowd of 9,053 on Sunday evening at GIANT Center.

The Bears extended their win streak against Springfield at home to 10 games in the victory, dating back to March 13, 2019 (5-3 W). Hershey head coach Todd Nelson was credited with his 100th game behind the Bears bench since joining the club for the 2022-23 season, posting a 66-25-9 record.

BOX SCORE

The first period began with a spirited bout between Bears captain Dylan McIlrath and Thunderbirds forward Sam Bitten at 3:21 that lasted for over half a minute before McIlrath knocked Bitten down to the left of the Hershey bench.

Hershey out-shot Springfield 9-8 in the opening frame, and 4-3 in the second period, but neither team found the back of the net as Shepard and Malcom Subban put up a wall in front of their respective cages through the first 40 minutes of play.

The Bears finally broke through at 5:31 of the third period when Dubé unleashed a slapshot from the right side that struck the shoulder of Subban before trickling over the goal line for a 1-0 lead and Dubé’s team-leading 14th goal of the season. Aaron Ness and Vincent Iorio earned the assists on the goal. Dubé is currently tied for third in the American Hockey League in goal-scoring, and his four game-winners are tied for second in the AHL.

Shots finished 19-18 in favor of Hershey. Shepard stopped all 18 shots he faced to earn his 12th victory of the season, tying him for first in the league; Subban took the loss for Springfield with an 18-for-19 effort. Hershey went 0-for-2 on the power play; the Thunderbirds went 0-for-1 with the man advantage.

Headline Photo: Hershey Bears / Tori Hartman

Related Articles

RMNB is not associated with the Washington Capitals; Monumental Sports, the NHLPA, the NHL, or its properties. Not even a little bit.

All original content on russianmachineneverbreaks.com is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International – unless otherwise stated or superseded by another license. You are free to share, copy, and remix this content so long as it is attributed, done for noncommercial purposes, and done so under a license similar to this one.

zamboni logo