A Look at Your 2014-15 Hershey Bears

A new season is upon us.  The question is, what type of season will it be?

From 2005-2010 the Bears saw unprecedented success.  Since that 2009-10 team won the 11th Calder Cup in franchise history, the Bears have failed to win a playoff series.

So, what should we expect from this group of Bears?

The Goalies

Philip Grubauer is back for another season in Hershey.  Last year (as it was for many Bears) wasn't his best.  He went 13-13-2 with a 2.60 goals against average and a .916 save percentage.

Not terrible numbers.  But definitely down from the 15-9-2, 2.25 gaa, .919% we all saw in 2012-13.

Until injuries in Washington dictate otherwise, we should see plenty of Gruby early in the season.  Mann has said that he will split games between the tenders early in the season, but my guess is that Gruby solidifies himself as the #1 in that time period.

Backing him up to start the year will be Pheonix Copley.  Copley is entering his first full professional season after getting a brief stint in South Carolina last year and finishing his college career.

You can't tell much about Copley from his stats, but the organization has been impressed with him.  Once Eddie Pasquale returns to health I would expect Copley to head back to South Carolina, but who knows.  Being able to split games in Hershey to open the year could result in him sticking around.

And since we know something will happen in Washington, he will likely get plenty of chances to earn his stripes in Hershey.

Pasquale is out with a hip injury right now and I don't think he is expected back anytime soon.  He spent the last few years with the St. John's Icecaps.  Last year was his best year as he posted a 17-13-1 record with a 2.43 gaa and .920 save percentage.

He was signed with the vision of him backing up Gruby but his injury has left the door open for Copley to take that role.

Beyond them is Brandon Anderson who returns for his 3rd season in the organization and is coming off a pretty good year himself.  He spent the entire season with Reading and posted a 25-10-2 record with a 2.35 gaa and .916 save percentage.

Not bad numbers.

All in all it means that no matter who the Bears put between the pipes, there shouldn't be too much concern from the coaching staff or the fans.

In the crease...the Bears look pretty damn solid from the top down.

But what about outside of the crease.  I mean let's be honest...the crease hasn't really been Hershey's issue the past couple of years.

The Defense.

While there are plenty of new faces at forward for the Bears this year, the defense remains largely intact.

The opening night roster will look like this:

• Cameron Schilling
• Tomas Kundratek
• Steve Oleksy
• Patrick Wey
• Connor Carrick
• Mike Moore
• Jon Landry

And Nate Schmidt will likely report to Hershey once the Capitals injuries work themselves out (although he looked pretty good in the Caps opener last night).

I think we are all excited to see Kundy back on the ice after he missed almost the entire season due to a knee injury early last season.

There doesn't seem to be much of a weak link beyond him either.  This is a unit that is mostly built on the new premise that d-men should be puck movers first and physical players second.

With the exception of Oleksy (who isn't a bad puck mover either) the rest of these guys fit that mold pretty well, including the two new names on the list.

Moore comes to the Bears after 1 season in Providence.  He is an AHL veteran that has produced decent offensive numbers over the years.  Last year he scored 7 goals and added 21 assists in 75 games.

And he is solid in his own end too.  Only one of his career AHL seasons has finished with him as a minus player.  Obviously that stat isn't cut and dry, but still a positive.

Landry comes to Hershey after only his second full season in the AHL with Iowa.  When I first learned that he wasn't a veteran I figured he was a younger guy.  But in actuality he is the oldest defenseman on the team at 31 and spent many seasons in the recently-folded Central Hockey League.

After finally getting a chance to play a full season a couple of years ago he did alright for himself producing 8 goals and 25 assists in 2012-13.  Last year he didn't score a goal but recorded 18 assists in only 50 games.

Calling them all puck-moving defenseman doesn't mean that they don't have size or hit.  Landry is 6'3" 220lbs and I am sure he can lay into someone.  Moore is 6'1" and over 200 as well.

While the defense last year might not have been as consistent as needed I don't think they were the weak link on the team either.  And with so many guys returning after playing together last year it should help keep things moving nicely.

The opening night roster will likely feature Wey as a healthy scratch, but my guess is that there is no "weak-link" among them and they will all just rotate through with each guy playing the role of healthy scratch from time to time.

But again, I don't think the defense was really a problem last year.  And neither was the goaltending.  So (other than the coaching) that would leave the forwards as the main problem.

And they were.

The Forwards

It seemed that no one was capable of scoring goals last year (or the year before).

And while I hate to say this...it might be a problem again.

I have said it each of the past couple of seasons.  The Bears forwards look really good.  The team looks quite stacked.  Yet there is one weakness.

They don't have a go-to scorer.  Someone that you can count on late in games (or on the power play) to score the big goal.

An Alexandre Giroux type.  Or Andrew Gordon.  Or even for a bit, Chris Bourque.  Those guys could all score in bunches.

The 2014-15 Bears?   That remains to be seen.  The last thing any of us want to see is a bunch of players still looking for that perfect pass instead of getting the pucks on net.

First let's look at the group:

• Dustin Gazley
• Kris Newbury
• Nathan Walker
• Casey Wellman
• Stanislav Galiev
• Garrett Mitchell
• Dane Byers
• Chris Conner
• Caleb Herbert
• Chandler Stephenson
• Joel Broda
• Tim Kennedy
• Philippe Cornet
• Tim Spencer

That is your opening night roster (although Herbert is currently sidelined with an injury).  At some point the Bears are likely to see Chris Brown, Liam O'Brien, and possibly even Michael Latta, Andre Burakovsky, Tom Wilson, or even Evgeny Kuznetsov.

All of those players are currently with the Caps, but assuming injured players return to the lineup and no one else gets hurt, some or all are likely to spend some time in Hershey.  Quite honestly I think the most unlikely one will be Latta due to his having to clear waivers to come down.  That doesn't mean I expect to see the other guys either, but losing Latta isn't something I suspect the organization wants to risk.

But let's focus on the opening night guys.

Talented.  No question.

And productive.  Wellman, Conner, and Kennedy have all averaged at least .75 points per game in their careers.  And Newbury is just behind them at .70.

Awesome.  Except none of them are pure goal scorers.  They are more the guy who sets them up.

Think of them as the Keith Aucoin to Giroux.  Sure, they can score goals, but they are better at setting them up.

Combined, the four players I mentioned have played 27 AHL seasons.  In those they have a combined FOUR 20 goal seasons.  And three belong to Newbury.

Now, in fairness, that is because many of those seasons resulted in trips to the NHL.  But still, they never have been consistent, go-to scorers in the AHL.

Is anyone else on the roster?  Well, we aren't sure yet.

Galiev has that ability.  He scored about .5 goals per game in the ECHL the last two years.  Unfortunately when he would get recalled to Hershey the coaches insisted on putting him on the 4th line.  Maybe if Mann gives him top 6 minutes he could blossom.

Broda maybe?  He was Mann's captain in Bakersfield last year when we scored 21 goals in 41 games.  And in his last 2 years of junior hockey he scored 92 goals in 137 games.  (And was actually drafted by the Caps but never played for the organization...as was Kennedy actually.)

Gazley scored 25 back in 2011-12 in the ECHL but only 8 last year in Hershey.  Byers scored 25 back in the 2009-10 season, but he isn't a top 6 forward anymore and doesn't pretend to be.

Cornet scored 24 in 2011-12 but only 13 last year.  Stephenson scored 30 last season in juniors.

The potential is definitely there.

The one thing that I basically touched on without actually mentioning is depth.  I just went through 10 of the 14 players on the list and all of them are offensive weapons.

And the 4 I didn't mention - Walker, Mitchell, Herbert, and Spencer - all have offensive skill of their own...well, maybe Spencer is limited, but he is the only one.


I think this Bear's team will score plenty of goals to win.  I think they will make the playoffs.  And once they are there I am certain they can win it all.

But who are they going to look to late in a close game to get them that goal?  Who is Coach Mann going to put out on the ice with time running down in an effort to get that elusive tying goal?

That player isn't known yet.

Hopefully someone steps up.




Quite honestly, I like this team MORE than last year.  The 2013-14 Bears were talented, but they were also old.

The 2014-15 Bears finally have some youth returning to the lineup.  After years of waiting, Washington prospects are finally making their way back to Chocolate Town for some seasoning.

In addition, some good trades have resulted in a few prospects being added to the pool.  Granted the top prospects are still skipping Hershey altogether, but at least we are seeing some of them.

And they should bring some speed to the lineup that we in Hershey haven't seen in a while.

Last year we all saw the difference when Gazley was in the lineup.  His speed changed the games and that resulted in scoring chances and the opposing defense being on their heels.

More speed is expected of this group.

It will be fun to watch.



Image Credits - I borrowed all these images from Sweetest Hockey on Earth (hope they don't mind).

East Division Preview - Part 2

This is the second part of a two-part look at the Bear's East Division opponents.  See part 1 about Wilkes-Barre/Scranton and Lehigh Valley

Now we'll take a look at the Binghamton Senators and Norfolk Admirals. I included these teams for a separate post not only because they're non-PA teams but because they have similar characteristics. What I mean is that both are typically middle to lower division teams that found brief bursts of success recently with Binghamton winning the Calder Cup in 10-11 and Norfolk in 11-12. 

Binghamton has benefited greatly from Ottawa's strategy of rebuilding from within. This is one of the reasons the Senators won in the Cup in 10-11 with Robin Lehner taking the reigns and becoming Playoff MVP. All the while management has continued to stockpile draft picks, which has allowed Binghamton to be a very formidable team. Now the question becomes if players like Mika Zibanejad, David Dziurzynski and Stehpane De Costa are ready to move up to the big club.

With Ottawa's draft picks and trades, such as Bobby Ryan, finally starting to show success, now seems the time for those young guys to move up. And I suspect that Zibanejad and Dziurzynski will be in Ottawa on opening day. Because of this, I don't see Binghamton taking the division again. Even with youth and recent success on their side, the Senators are going to have a little tougher time this season.

For Norfolk, I sure hope they enjoyed that record breaking season and Calder Cup championship back in 11-12, because it's most likely never going to happen again. Norfolk's management and parent club (Anaheim) just don't appear to care enough about building a solid minor league team the way Tampa Bay did when it was associated with Norfolk during that winning year. Looking at how the Anaheim Ducks are now operating, they are definitely a win now team. And Norfolk will continue to suffer because of it.

And it's clear that some of the top prospects that played well in Norfolk will be making the move to Anaheim. Notably, John Gibson from the way he performed in the playoffs for Anaheim last year. But also possibly defenseman Sami Vatanen and forward Devante Smith-Pelly. Though the Admirals played well last season and made the playoffs, I suspect that if, much like Binghamton, it's time for the top performers to graduate to the next level then the Admirals will struggle throughout the season.
Which brings up an interesting point. As the majority of NHL teams have copied both the Pittsburgh Penguins and Chicago Blackhawks and gone the youth route, it now appears that the AHL could be entering an era in which the parent club and management are seriously interested in building solid, winning minor league teams. There was even talk over the summer about more AHL teams moving closer to their respective NHL affiliate. So in the future, we could see more AHL teams migrating out West. Or at least to the Mid-West.

For many years Hershey has been and continues to be the standard for how to operate an AHL team and be successful. Since for NHL teams the focus is on drafting young players and developing them in the minor league system, it's only logical that management would want to build competent minor league teams that develops those draft picks correctly. I'm just surprised  it took this long. Whatever happens, it appears that there is more and better competition coming to the AHL and that only means a better quality product on the ice for the fans.

East Division Preview - Part 1

With the preseason ending this weekend and rosters being finalized in the coming week, now is a good time to look at the other teams of the East Division and how the Bears can expect to matchup against them. With Syracuse moving to the Northeast Division and the Phantoms returning to eastern Pennsylvania, the division feels more "local" now. I really wish it was Norfolk that moved out and Syracuse that stayed. I like the sort of "I-81" rivalry between Hershey, Wilkes-Barre, Binghamton and Syracuse with a trip up to the War Memorial within just a 3 hours drive or so. Anyway, this will be a two part preview with Wilkes-Barre and Lehigh Valley first, being that they're from PA and the teams the Bears will play most this season. Binghamton and Norfolk will be previewed in Part 2.

To a certain extent, it appears that the days of East Division teams dominating the Eastern Conference are gone. If it wasn't a year in which the Bears were running away with the division and conference then one could almost expect one of their division rivals to be the top team. However, it appears that most of the East Division teams, right along with Hershey, are feeling the effects of the various stages of rebuilding or retooling by their respective NHL affiliates. That being said, with the exception of Syracuse the rest of the teams finished within 10 points of each other last season. Wins one way or another and any of those teams could have been bumped out of the playoffs. But that could be a good thing this year. With the teams pretty much on par with each other, the Bears have plenty of opportunity to define themselves under Troy Mann and reclaim the top spot in the East. 

Because of the changes in Pittsburgh, Wilkes-Barre is in a bit of a youth movement right now. There were no notable free agent signings over the summer, besides Pierre-Luc Letourneau-Leblond, and most returning players are young draft picks that have been in the AHL for a couple of years now. So Hershey will get its fair share of seeing Jason Megna, Zach Sill, Simon Depres, Philip Samuelsson, and Matt Murray again. While this is certainly not the Pens that reached 117 points a few years ago, this stage of the team's development could be very dangerous for battling in the division.

The young players either continue to get better as players and learn how to win (leading to a tough fight at the top of the division) or they struggle to develop and middle out in the division like they have done the past 3 years. The key is whether that progress pays off with success. Another issue is call-ups. The past couple of years has seen a lot of forwards being called up to Pittsburgh to fill spots on the third and fourth lines. This year should be the defensemen's turn. With Brooks Orpik and Matt Niskanen now Capitals, the Pens could see Philip Samuelsson, Simon Depres and Brian Dumoulin called up to the big club quite a bit this year. This will make for a weaker back end in those close games the Bears and Pens inevitably find themselves in.

I cannot express enough how pleased I am that the Phantoms are back in PA as a rival for the Bears. If New York can have as many AHL teams as they do, why not Pennsylvania. Especially in the Allentown area. Big win for that area. Hopefully they'll be able to pull enough Philly fans up that way to make the rivalry games as contentious as when the Phantoms were located in Philadelphia.

That being said, it may be a long season for the first year Lehigh Valley Phantoms. It doesn't appear that the Flyers organization knows whether it's in a rebuilding mode or a retooling mode and this has trickled down to the Phantoms. Much like Wilkes-Barre, the Phantoms are stocked with younger guys who have been around for awhile now. Likewise, they have not made very few moves in the off-season except for Derek Whitmore (having a brief stint with the Bears), who has shown to be a good contributor, and Hershey favorite Andrew Gordon. Let's be honest, signing Gordon was a great move by the Phantoms. This will really bring something to the rivalry in the Phantom's first year back in PA.

The question is will the change of location and division make any difference? Most likely not. The Phantoms have struggled since leaving Philadelphia and there doesn't appear to be any improvement on the horizon. At best they're a middle division team although the most likely position is to replace Syracuse at the bottom. But here's hoping that the renewed State rivalry brings out the best between the Bears and Phantoms. And the Phantoms and Pens. With the Bears on top and the Pens and Phantoms battling for the second and third spots.


And now, a bit of a rant and point to be made. A lot of hype was made about the owners getting the stadium built in Allentown and bringing the Phantoms back to PA. As I said previously, great for the State and couldn't be happier. However, in all this build-up the management forgot one thing: THE TEAM! How can they go to this much trouble in bringing the team back to PA and forget the product in the marketing process? I'm specifically referring to the Phantom's website. Basically, it's terrible. The first thing one is faced with is the team's schedule and purchasing tickets. I get it, you need to sell tickets. But when clicking the link to the "Phantoms" website, it takes you to Adirondack Phantoms old site that hasn't been updated since before last year's playoffs.

If I'm a Phantoms fan, this is unacceptable. They should have Andrew Gordon's and the Flyers' prospects faces and videos plastered all over a new site exclaiming how good the team is going to be. But no news is had on any team developments. Just very poorly executed.

Anyway, next up we'll look at Binghamton and Norfolk.

Looking Towards 2014-15

I just spent a few minutes updating the prospective 2014-15 Bears roster page and thought I would discuss it a bit.

This team is looking pretty good.  Although I say that every year.

The defense is probably just about set.  With the Caps adding Brooks Orpik and Matt Niskanen they are now at 8 defensemen and that means guys like Tomas Kundratek, Cameron Schilling, Nate Schmidt, and Connor Carrick will be spending the majority of their time in 2014-15 playing for the Bears.

Add the newly acquired veteran Mike Moore and also Jon Layton to go with Steve Oleksy and Patrick Wey and you have 8 defenseman in Hershey that can absolutely play.

I wouldn't be surprised to see another 1 or 2 names on the blue line, but for the most part the guys that will play regularly are already on the roster.

Forward is an entirely different discussion as there are surely still some signings to announce, but there is plenty of talent in place already.

Dustin Gazley, Nathan Walker, Michael Latta, Casey Wellman, Stanislav Galiev, Chris Brown, Garrett Mitchell, and Dane Byers are all back.  Although I do expect Latta to at the very least spend considerable time in Washington.

You also have a couple anticipated prospects moving up to the Bears.  A couple of them, Caleb Herbert and Chandler Stephenson, got a taste of the AHL at the end of last season and both looked promising.

And then you have Andre Burokovsky.  He is no lock to be in Hershey as he could go back to juniors or even make the Caps, but he seems to have a legitimate shot at playing for the Bears.

Oh and the Caps/Bears signed Chris Connor as well.  He is a guy that is about a point per game player in the AHL but has spent considerable time in the NHL so we will see where he plays most of the year.  

Is it an elite group?  Probably not, but it's pretty good.  But they aren't done for sure.  I have only named 12 forwards and they will likely have 15 on the roster all season and a handful playing for South Carolina.

As for the goalies, Philip Grubauer is surely the #1 entering this season.  The Caps/Bears traded for Eddie Pasquale to serve as his backup, but this is Grubauer's team for 2014-15.


So overall...a very promising roster is coming together.  You have some puck moving defensemen that will be joined by some larger blue-liners and you have plenty of talent at forward along with some needed speed.
Add in a few veteran pieces (still a couple of veteran spots available) and some more offensive firepower and you have a solid team coming together.

I like it.