The Hershey Bears suffered only their second regulation loss in nine games, Wednesday night, after falling to the Lehigh Valley Phantoms 2-1 at Giant Center.
The loss came after a three-in-three this past weekend and marked Hunter Shepard’s first on the season. The reigning AHL goaltender of the year started the 2024-25 campaign with five consecutive victories. He made 21 saves on 23 Phantoms shots.
“You know what? Tonight’s game kind of scared me,” Bears head coach Todd Nelson said per the team. “I was concerned about it because just coming off the three-in-three with the travel – I know how I feel right now – anytime you have a three-in-three, you usually have time to reset. I’m not saying that’s why we lost, but I thought that was a snoozefest out there tonight. Both teams were flat. They ended up scoring one more goal. That’s all it came down to. We had our chances, we couldn’t find the back of the net. We had an open net on the power play in the second period; couldn’t find it there and they ended up scoring in the third. And that was the difference-maker.”
The Bears’ only goal of the night came from defenseman Jake Massie. The defenseman nailed a shot from the point off the crossbar and in. Ethen Frank and Chase Priskie were credited with assists.
And here’s a look from the ice level.
The primary assist put Frank in a five-way tie for second in the league in points with 10.
The Phantoms got a first-period goal from Helge Grans. Jacob Gaucher scored the game-winner 8:56 into the third. Phantoms goaltender Cal Petersen made 29 saves in the victory.
“Yeah, we were definitely not at our best tonight,” Brennan Saulnier said. “We came out, we were a little flat and we had spurts of good moments, but never was able to really roll the lines over and get our forecheck going and create down there… We left points on the line tonight, so we’ll just look to regroup and battle for first place this weekend.”
One notable moment came in the second period when Shepard left his goal to make a diving poke-check in the right circle.
Ethan Bear sat out his first game of the year after playing in the team’s first eight games. The defenseman was likely held out for a possible recall to Washington as the Capitals had two of their defensemen, Jakob Chychrun and Matt Roy, in non-contact jerseys at practice on Wednesday and Alex Alexeyev away from the team due to personal reasons (baby).
Unavailable for the Bears tonight: Leivermann (upper body), Häman Aktell (lower body), Day (upper body), Philp (lower body), Stevenson (upper body), McDonald (upper body) https://t.co/9fyV3ZfIQ9
— Hershey Bears (@TheHersheyBears) October 30, 2024
Wednesday’s game marked the beginning of a five-game homestand for the Bears. They next play Saturday and Sunday against the Charlotte Checkers.
