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AHL Hershey Bears

Bears Start December with 4-1 Win Over Crunch

December 2, 2011 - American Hockey League (AHL)
Hershey Bears News Release


SYRACUSE, N.Y. - Matt Pope and Tomas Kundratek each scored their first goals in their HERSHEY BEARS careers, and Braden Holtby made 24 saves to help the visitors to a 4-1 win over the Syracuse Crunch on Friday night at the OnCenter War Memorial.

The BEARS struck first once again and grabbed a 1-0 lead at 5:40 of the first period. Christian Hanson worked hard behind the goal line to get some space and fed Graham Mink from right corner to left corner. Mink snuck a perfect pass to the slot from behind the net for Pope, who one-timed a shot past Syracuse netminder Iiro Tarkki for his first goal of the season.

The BEARS killed off the first power play awarded to Syracuse, but couldn't tie up Patrick Maroon at 18:52. Maroon deflected a left-point slap shot from Nick Schaus past Holtby to tie the score.

But just under one minute later, Kundratek took a pass from Keith Aucoin, faked a man down and fired a wrist shot past the blocker of Tarkki at 19:41 to give the BEARS a 2-1 lead at the first intermission.

Both Tarkki and Holtby each kept their teams playing hard in front of them with big saves in the middle frame, until a scrum after a whistle late in the period landed both Mark Bell and Kyle Palmieri in the penalty box and Brett Flemming the lone BEARS player sitting. With 1:06 to go in the frame, Ryan Potulny quickly fed the slot where Mink buried his eighth goal of the season and gave the BEARS a 3-1 advantage.

Matt Ford extended the BEARS' lead to 4-1 at 12:36 of the third, tapping home a pass from Aucoin for his fourth goal of the season and sending the visitors to the win.

The BEARS finished the night 1-for-2 on the power play and 3-for-4 on the penalty kill.

Holtby improves to 6-5-1 with the win, while Tarkki stopped 38 shots in falling to 6-6-1.

With the win, HERSHEY moves its record to 10-6-3-2 on the season and 6-3-1-1 on the road.

HERSHEY returns home tomorrow, December 3 to face the Portland Pirates at 7:00 PM. It is WGAL Teddy Bear Toss Night, and fans are asked to bring a stuffed toy to toss onto the ice following the BEARS' first goal scored.

Individual tickets for this and all regular-season home games are on sale now by calling (717) 508-BEAR, or by visiting ticketmaster.com.

HERSHEY BEARS season ticket plans are also on sale now by calling (717) 508-BEAR, with many different flexible plans still available. Season ticket plans start as low as $160.

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