The Hershey Bears and Cleveland Monsters renewed their rivalry with a back-to-back at Giant Center over the weekend. The two teams split the two-game series with Hershey winning 3-2 on Saturday and Cleveland taking Sunday’s game 3-2 in overtime.
Both matchups had a playoff-like intensity and featured some of Hershey’s biggest hits of the season.
The biggest bodycheck of the weekend came in Sunday’s game when Bears two-way centerman Henrik Rybinski, who’s not especially physical, delivered a huge open-ice hit in the first period on Roman Ahcan. Rybinski caught the Monsters forward with his head down as he carried the puck into the zone and cut to the middle of the ice.
Rybinski buried his shoulder into Ahcan’s chest, dislodging the winger’s helmet and sending it high into the air. Ahcan laid on the ice rattled before slowly making his way off the ice.
The Monsters looked for payback shortly after as defenseman Caleb MacDonald went after Andrew Cristall while Ahcan was on the ice, delivering several hits to the Capitals prospect behind the play. That didn’t sit well with Bears’ enforcer Dalton Smith, who dropped the gloves with the Monsters’ rearguard.
Behind the play, Ahcan went after Rybinski, earning a two-minute cross-checking penalty and a 10-minute misconduct for abuse of officials.
Then, on another late-period shift, Monsters centerman Max McCue tied up and grabbed Rybinski, dropping his gloves. Rybinski wanted no part of it and absorbed several punches as officials tried to split the two up. McCue earned four minutes of penalties on the play, both for roughing.
Saturday’s tilt was just as physical, with the Bears’ Dalton Smith authoring the biggest hitthat night. After getting tripped by goaltender Ivan Fedotov, Smith got up seemingly irritated and sent a Monsters player flying into their own bench.
“It felt like every hit we had, we could really feel the crowd in the building come alive,” Bears forward Grant Cruikshank said, per the team. “That definitely gave us some momentum… I felt like we did a fairly good job of keeping our heads in it, playing hard between the whistles, and nothing really brutal came from it.”
The AHL affiliates of the Capitals and Blue Jackets both have much to play for, as both teams are sitting fifth in their own divisions ahead of the stretch run for the playoffs.
The 17-14-2 Bears have 36 points, six behind the third and fourth place teams, the Charlotte Checkers and Lehigh Valley Phantoms, in the Atlantic Division standings. The 17-12-4 Monsters have 39 and trail the North Division-leading Laval Rocket by six standings points.
