Bears play...and lose 3 in 3

I was going to do some research today to figure out the last time a Hershey team lost all 3 games in a 3 in 3 weekend.  The good folks at Sweetest Hockey on Earth beat me to it.

April 2005.

The last time the Hershey Bears lost all 3 games of a 3 in 3 was under the Colorado Avalanche. 

Thanks to ABC27 I was able to see all 3 games this weekend.  The unfortunate part of that is, had I only seen 1, I would have seen them all.

The Bears played the exact same on Sunday as they had on Friday.  It was like 3 nights was just one game. 

Friday was the first period which saw the Bears lose on a late (6 minutes to go) shorthanded tally by the Binghamton Senators.  Then after a 21ish hour intermission (and 3 hr road trip) they lost with another late (2 minutes to go) goal, this time by the Monarchs.  Then another 19ish hour intermission they came out and laid an egg and lost yet again to Manchester.

Honestly, it was the same team all three games.  And I am pretty sure it was a completely different team that had played previously in Hershey. 

The goaltending...average...AT BEST.

The defense...way to aggressive at the offensive blueline.

The offense...too much passing.

The goaltending was weak all 3 games with the best performance coming on Sunday with Braden Holtby in net.  (He also played Friday).  But in all three games there were goals that should have been saves.  The goaltending deserves a fair share of the blame, but they weren't the only problem.

The defense routinely pinched in in the offensive zone and in turn routinely got beat the other way for odd man rushes.  Many of these odd man rushes led to goals for the Senators and Monarchs. 

The forwards couldn't shoot the puck.  And when they did shoot the puck they generally missed the net.  The opposing goaltenders were good, no doubt, but the Bears always wanted to make the extra pass looking for the perfect shot/wide open net. 

Don't get me wrong...I enjoy the nice passing.  And most of the time I think it is a necessary evil, but this weekend, last night especially, there was simply too much of it.  Shooters were passing up shots left and right in an effort to look for "something better".

It was just a bad weekend for the Bears.

All teams go through spurts of bad games and bad luck.  This, in my opinion, is just that.  It was a 3 game weekend after a 1 in 10 days stretch that apparently surprised the Bears. 

They will rebound.