Bears Rally to Top T-Birds, 6-2

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AHL Hershey Bears

Bears Rally to Top T-Birds, 6-2

October 26, 2024 - American Hockey League (AHL)
Hershey Bears News Release


(Springfield, MA) - Trailing 2-0, the Hershey Bears (5-1-1-0) reeled off six straight goals and rallied for the second straight road game to come away with a 6-2 victory over the Springfield Thunderbirds (2-5-0-0) on Saturday night at MassMutual Center, as the club continued its 2024-25 season, presented by Penn State Health.

With the win, Hershey's point streak increased to five games (4-0-1-0), and the club improved to 3-0-0-0 on the road this season.

NOTABLES:

First-period goals by Springfield's Reece Newkirk and Matthew Peca put Hershey at a 2-0 deficit.

Alex Limoges ignited the comeback with a 5-on-3 power-play goal at 11:08 of the first period. Limoges also notched Hershey's fifth goal of the game in the third period.

Chase Priskie scored back-to-back goals on the man advantage for his first tallies of the season in the second period to tie the game and put the Bears ahead 3-2; the goals marked his third career multi-goal game in the AHL.

Spencer Smallman and Ivan Miroshnichenko each matched their AHL career-highs with a pair of assists.

Mike Sgarbossa (0g, 2a) also collected two helpers; his first assist, earned on Aaron Ness' goal, marked his 300th professional assist.

Bears captain Aaron Ness and Riley Sutter added their first goals of the season in the third period.

Rookie Goaltender Mitch Gibson got the win in his season debut for Hershey, improving to 3-0-0 in his AHL career.

Rookie forward Alex Suzdalev also made his North American pro debut.

Hershey's penalty kill went 4-for-4 for the fourth consecutive game.

SHOTS: HER 30, SPR 28

GOALTENDING: HER - Mitch Gibson, 26-for-28; SPR - Vadim Zherenko, 24-for-30

POWER PLAY: HER - 3-for-8; SPR - 0-for-4

THEY SAID IT:

"Well, it feels like a broken record right now. It's like when we play these hockey teams, they come out after us, they play with high intensity, and I give Springfield credit - they came out ready to play and our guys weren't putting in the work ethic that we needed to have. So we had a healthy discussion after the first period and then in the second and third periods, we started working and then the game turned in our favor." - Todd Nelson on the team rallying after trailing for the second consecutive evening.

"Limo is just a real smart hockey player with a high hockey IQ, he has skill to go along with it, and he's really good around the net-front on the power play. And then with Chase, he usually plays the top of the zone on the power play, but with the personnel we had tonight, we had him play in the bumper position, and he did a really good job. He's played there before, so it's not foreign to him, but it was nice to see him get rewarded." - Nelson on Alex Limoges and Chase Priskie both scoring twice.

"We're going to put some fresh guys in again tomorrow. Zac Funk's a possibility to go in tomorrow, so is Dmitry Osipov, Mike Vecchione, and Matt Strome. So we have options heading into Sunday." - Nelson on how he is considering rotating players to maintain freshness with the lineup heading into a third road game in as many days on Sunday.

"Our unit moved the puck really well. Just trying to find open spots on the ice, trying to find open ice and our flanks did a great job finding me and I was on the beneficial end of just putting the puck in the net, but a lot of credit goes to those guys making plays." - Chase Priskie on what led to him scoring twice on the power play for his third career multi-goal game.

"I think [it's the result of] just a little bit of familiarity. We're still really early in the season, we still have a lot of new guys acclimating to how we wanna play on the power play. And for us it's just keeping it simple, moving the puck to the open guy and taking our shots when they're available and eventually they're gonna fall. So we were lucky tonight to move the puck well and be on the beneficial end of that." - Priskie on what led to the power play unit converting three times tonight after getting shutout at Providence on Friday.

NEXT GAME:

The Bears continue the 2024-25 regular season, presented by Penn State Health, when they visit the Providence Bruins on Sunday, Oct. 27 at 3:05 p.m. at MassMutual Center. Hershey is back on home ice when it hosts the Lehigh Valley Phantoms on Wednesday, Oct. 30 at 7 p.m. at GIANT Center for College Night. The first 500 college students in attendance will receive a t-shirt, courtesy of Enck's Trophies and Screen Printing. Purchase tickets for the game.

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The opinions expressed in this release are those of the organization issuing it, and do not necessarily reflect the thoughts or opinions of OurSports Central or its staff.

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