Saturday, December 19, 2009

Huge win for Bears in Rochester

Yesterday I mentioned that Rochester is a very good home team (11-1-1-0 going into last nights game) and has one of the best power plays in the AHL (2nd overall).

But that didn't help them last night. Despite spending much of the first period (4 separate minors) on the penalty kill the Bears still managed to come away with a 3-1 victory over the North division leaders.

Hershey got a strong performance in goal by Braden Holtby, now 4-1-1 on the season, as he made 26 saves in the winning effort. Hershey held their own at the other end as well scoring 3 times (once in each period) and getting 40 shots on Alexander Salak.

Salak now has 4 losses on the season...half of them coming against the Bears. I am sure he doesn't want to see anymore of Hershey this season.

Hershey got goals from Oskar Osala (7th of the season), Jay Beagle (5th), and Amerks killer Keith Aucoin (13th and 4th in two games against Amerks) to collect their 19th win of the season. Hershey now leads the East division by 3 points with 2 games in hand over 2nd place Albany.

It was a good performance by the Bears as they had struggled recently on Friday nights. It seems the practice schedule change (they had off Tuesday) might have helped them out a bit.

Tonight (depending on the weather) the Bears will host the Amerks at Giant Center. Jason Bacashihua is expected to get the start in net for Hershey.

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