Washington Capitals head coach Spencer Carbery was in the house for several Hershey Bears’ games during the 2024 Calder Cup Playoffs. Carbery was spotted at Giant Center for the Eastern Conference Finals and Calder Cup Finals, keeping a close eye on players he could potentially coach next season and beyond.
The Bears would eventually repeat as champions and capture the franchise’s 13th Calder Cup after Matt Strome scored in overtime of Game 6 against the Coachella Valley Firebirds.
Two weeks after the Bears lifted the Calder Cup, Carbery was asked who he thought had standout performances on the team after Development Camp.
“A bunch, the team in general,” Carbery told RMNB. “Individually, obviously, you look at the goaltending and Shep. I know maybe the numbers don’t look the same as they were the year before, but finding ways to win two years in a row for a goalie and playing that much: incredible performance.”
Shepard, named the AHL’s most outstanding goaltender during the regular season, posted the same record during his MVP performance in the 2023 playoffs.
| Year | W | L | GAA | SV% | SO |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 | 14 | 6 | 2.49 | .910 | 0 |
| 2023* | 14 | 6 | 2.27 | .914 | 3 |
* Shepard named Playoff MVP
Shepard went 28-12 during the Bears’ championship runs in 2023 and 2024 and suited up in 107 games in the regular season and postseason combined. Both of his seasons extended to the end of June.
“I look at a lot of different [players], whether it’s Ethen Frank, (Alex) Limoges, I was impressed with through some of the games that I watched,” Carbery said. “I felt like that was probably the best attribute from afar of watching Hershey play is it felt like it was a different line every night or a different group of players that was sort of stepping up and making a real difference in that game.
“So whether it was the top line with Lappy’s line, then the next night it would be Mike Vecchione and Limoges and then all of a sudden (Hardy) Häman Aktell is having (a breakout performance). So the depth through their lineup and the different players stepping up on a nightly basis, whether it was a line, D, or even Shep when he’s called on, was really impressive to watch.”
Limoges, a Winchester, VA native, came on late in the postseason after notching only four points in the first 12 playoff games. Forming a line with Pierrick Dubé and Jimmy Huntington, Limoges tallied 9 points (1g, 8a) in the team’s final 8 games. He was the team’s third-leading goal-scorer in the regular season, notching 24 points and posting 51 points in 62 games.
Vecchione, who scored the team’s Calder Cup-winning goal in 2023, was moved off the first line and helped turn the team’s third trio, which included Ivan Miroshnichenko and Garrett Roe, into an offensive force. Vecchione, who forechecked and did much of the dirty work to open up space for his teammates, registered 10 points (2g, 8a) in 20 games. Meanwhile, Roe scored the Game 7 overtime goal in the Eastern Conference Finals to send the Bears to the championship series. Miroshnichenko scored 7 goals and had 12 points.
After the Bears suffered several major injuries on the backend, Häman Aktell stepped up and was dominant late in the postseason, tying for the league lead among defensemen in goals (5) and finishing sixth among all rearguards in points (9).
Overall, Carbery liked how the Bears handled all the adversity that came their way, even if they were considered the deepest team in the AHL. To him, in some ways, that made games even more difficult than the year before because they were routinely getting other teams’ best efforts.
“Being able to do that back-to-back with the target on their back, now as the favorites, as the team [that’s] supposed to win a Calder Cup, it was really impressive to see them come through that,” Carbery said.
As for the moment that most impressed him, Carbery cited the Eastern Conference Finals with the Cleveland Monsters where Hershey pulled the series out in overtime of Game 7. The Bears won the first three games and lost the next three after that, facing a potential historic collapse.
Instead, the Bears rose to the moment, as they did all season long, and became the first AHL team to repeat since they did so in 2009 and 2010.
