The Hershey Bears completed a series sweep of Iowa Wild Saturday night with a 3-2 shootout victory. The win marked the Bears’ 50th win of the season, the club’s fourth time reaching this milestone in their 86-year history.
The Bears’ last season to reach the 50-win mark was the 2009-10 campaign, where Hershey went 60-17-3 over an 80 game span. The other two 50 win seasons came during 2006-07 and 1987-88. The 2024 season is the Bears’ first time reaching 50 wins during the modern 72-game schedule.
To get the milestone W, the Bears fought till the end with Iowa , narrowly outshooting the Wild 28-26 and finally prevailing through in the shootout. With Hunter Shepard returning from a call-up to Washington, Clay Stevenson played his second straight night in net and made 26 saves.
While Iowa opened scoring with an early power-play goal, Hershey responded with a power-play goal of their own with 4:13 left in the first period from Chase Priskie. Set up at the left circle, Priskie fired the puck past netminder Zane McIntyre for his eighth goal of the season.
The Bears took lead of the game late in the second period with a goal by Alex Limoges. From the blue line, Logan Day flung the puck towards the net, where Limoges buried the rebound. The goal was Limoges’ 23rd of the season, tying his career best of goals from 2022-23.
Iowa would even the score 10:48 into the third with forward Gavin Hain burying a puck in front of the net. The teams ended regulation 2-2 and headed to overtime.
After neither team managed to find the net in extra time, the Wild and Bears headed to a shootout where Iowa elected to shoot first.
The Wild buried their first round attempt past Stevenson, but Bears’ leading goal scorer Ethen Frank also buried his. Both teams’ goaltenders got hot the the next five rounds, with neither team managing to score.
Finally, in the seventh round after a missed shot from Iowa’s Steven Fogarty, Matt Strome put the puck past McIntyre, giving the Bears a thrilling 3-2 victory.
With the win, the Bears’ magic number to clinch as the AHL’s Regular-Season Champions has dropped to just three. The only team still in contention with Hershey is the Coachella Valley Firebirds, who the Bears faced in the Calder Cup Finals last season.
The Bears take the ice next at home on Friday April 12th to face off against the Lehigh Valley Firebirds for one final time this season.
Here were the lines from the victory:
Tonight's projected lineup against the Wild 📝
Haakon Hänelt is expected to make his North American pro debut! Jake Massie is also expected to dress as an extra defenseman.
Catch tonight's broadcast:
🖥️ https://t.co/HaxQBmLCRZ
📻@FroggyValley, @foxsports1460am, @CapitalsRadio pic.twitter.com/ybP9JVPqyf— Hershey Bears (@TheHersheyBears) April 6, 2024
Worth noting: German forward Haakon Hänelt made his professional debut tonight for the Bears. A 2021 Capitals fifth-round pick, Hänelt played the 2023-24 season in Germany with the Cologne Sharks. He was signed to a professional tryout with Hershey on March 28th after the conclusion of the Sharks’ season.
Below is Hershey’s postgame press release:
BEARS CLAIM 50TH WIN IN 3-2 SHOOTOUT VICTORY OVER WILD
Strome scores in seventh round of shootout to lift Hershey
(Des Moines, IA – April 6, 2024) – Matt Strome scored the decisive goal in the seventh round of the shootout to lift the Hershey Bears (50-12-0-5) to a 3-2 victory over the Iowa Wild (24-35-4-3) on Saturday night at Wells Fargo Arena. The triumph marks the fourth time in franchise history that the Chocolate and White have reached the 50-win plateau in the regular season.
With the win, the Bears swept their first-ever season series with the Wild, posting a 4-0-0-0 record against the Central Division club. Hershey reduced its Magic Number for the American Hockey League’s Macgregor Kilpatrick Trophy for first place in the league to three points. Hershey improved to 4-5 in the shootout.
The game also marked Bears head coach Todd Nelson’s 700th game as an AHL head coach; in 700 career games with Hershey, Grand Rapids, and Oklahoma City, Nelson owns a record of 403-220-77.
Vladislav Firstov opened the scoring for Iowa with a power-play goal that beat Clay Stevenson at 4:17 of the first period.
Hershey responded in kind with a goal on the man advantage when Chase Priskie hammered his eighth of the season past Zane McIntryre from the left circle at 13:05. Lucas Johansen and Pierrick Dubé assisted on the goal.
Alex Limoges then gave the Bears their first lead of the night at 18:09 of the second period when he corralled a Logan Day rebound and tapped it past McIntryre for his 23rd of the season. Joe Snively picked up an additional assist.
Gavin Hain leveled the score for the Wild midway through the third period with a goal at 10:48.
Regulation ended with the game still tied 2-2, and the five-minute overtime failed to produce a winner.
Iowa elected to shoot first in the shootout, with Sammy Walker scoring for the hosts and Ethen Frank equalizing for Hershey in the opening round. Over the next five rounds, neither team was able to make any further progress. In the top of the seventh round, the Wild sent out Steven Fogarty, but Stevenson turned his attempt aside with a blocker save.
Strome then won it for the Bears when he faked a shot to McIntyre’s glove side before quickly snapping his second career shootout-winner past the goaltender’s blocker.
Shots finished 28-26 in favor of Hershey. Stevenson went 24-for-26 to earn his 23rd win of the season for Hershey; McIntyre took the shootout loss for Iowa with a 25-for-27 effort. The Bears went 1-for-5 on the power play; the Wild also went 1-for-5 with the man advantage.
