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AHL Hershey Bears

Hershey Weekly

March 2, 2015 - American Hockey League (AHL)
Hershey Bears News Release


The Hershey Bears Hockey Club picked up all six points on the weekend to take over the top spot in the American Hockey League.

On Friday at Binghamton, the Bears shook off a loss to the Senators from exactly one week prior, storming out of the gate and never looking back in a 5-1 victory. Casey Wellman scored twice, while Chris Brown and Tomas Kundratek chipped in goals that gave the Bears a 4-0 lead after two. After Alex Guptill broke Philipp Grubauer's shutout bid with 12:04 left to play, Dustin Gazley slipped a bad-angle shot behind Sens goaltender Scott Greenham to round out the scoring. Grubauer finished with 28 saves in the game. Kris Newbury and Philippe Cornet added two assists each.

The Bears returned home to host the Albany Devils on Saturday, and found themselves down by a 2-0 count early in the second period. Joe Whitney opened the scoring with the only goal of the first period on 16 Devils shots. Pheonix Copley turned in a strong performance to keep the Bears in the game. Hershey would then rewrite a piece of its history later in the second, when Tim Kennedy and Chris Conner scored five seconds apart to tie the contest. Garrett Mitchell gave Hershey its first lead of the night with an early third-period goal, a backhander that slipped behind Devils backstop Maxime Clermont. Mitchell then set up Joel Broda for an insurance goal with 3:46 left to play. Copley won his 10th game of the season with 24 saves. Conner was the star of the game, adding two assists to his game-tying goal.

The Bears then closed out the weekend on Sunday with a 37-save performance by Grubauer in a 2-0 win over the Lehigh Valley Phantoms. The teams traded two power play chances during a first period that saw the Phantoms take a 13-7 shot advantage. In the middle period, while both teams had a player in the penalty box, Mike Moore sent a long pass to Gazley, who banked a shot from below the goal line into the net behind Rob Zepp for the 1-0 lead. The Bears held this lead and later added to it at 5:19 of the third. Stan Galiev slammed home a cross-crease feed from Conner for his team-leading 21st goal of the season, and Grubauer did the rest, denying 16 third-period shots by the Phantoms to earn his sixth shutout of the season and 11th of his Hershey career. Newbury and Steve Oleksy also added assists in the game. Conner and Newbury joined Tim Kennedy as members of Hershey's 40-point club with their points in the game.

HERSHEY BEARS NEWS AND NOTES

GRU-POWER: G Philipp Grubauer finished off the month of February as one of the league's top performers, going 7-1-0 in his eight appearances. Adding his 23rd win of the season on Sunday, Grubauer is now 12-1-0 in 2015. His sixth shutout came on Sunday vs. Lehigh Valley, which puts him in sole possession of seventh place in all-time Hershey shutouts. Andre Gill (sixth) has 12, and Braden Holtby (fifth) has 14. The shutout also helped the Bears tie the franchise record for team shutouts (nine), last reached in 2003-04 and by the 1996-97 Calder Cup championship team.

CONNER'S ON FIRE: LW Chris Conner was Hershey's leading point producer in February, chalking up 14 points (6-8-14) in 12 games. Conner's 16th goal of the season on Saturday helped the Bears set a new franchise record for fastest two goals by two players, when he followed up Tim Kennedy's strike just five seconds later. The old record was two goals in six seconds by Tim Tookey & Bill Armstrong, 3/31/90 at Binghamton.

TK-O: Veteran C Tim Kennedy recorded his 40th assist of the season on Sunday. Kennedy is tied for the AHL assist lead (40) and power-play assist lead (18), and ranks 11th in overall AHL scoring (6-40-46). Kennedy had ten points (1-9-10) in 11 February games.

DUSTIN THE OPPONENTS: RW Dustin Gazley picked up three points (2-1-3) on the weekend, including Sunday's game-winning goal. Gazley finished February with eight points (6-2-8), has seven goals in his last eight games and continues to increase his AHL career-best goals, assists and points totals (13- 11-24).

BEARS BULLETS: The Bears have the league's longest-active home points streak (12 games, 10-0-1-1)...Hershey leads the league with 37 first-goals, and is 26-8-3-0 when scoring first...Hershey has trailed only 13 times after one period - fewest in the league - and has a winning record when doing so (6-4-2- 1)...Hershey is tied for seventh in goals per game (2.95)...Hershey ranks second in goals against per game (2.20)... The Bears lead the league in penalty killing (88.8%)...The Bears rank second in team shutouts (nine)...The Bears have the most wins (35), points (77) and home points (50) in the AHL and boast the league's highest win percentage (.688)...The club is tied for the most home wins (23), fewest regulation losses (14) and fewest regulation home losses (five) in the AHL...Hershey eclipsed 300,000 in total attendance on Sunday, and maintains the AHL attendance lead with an average of 9,636 fans (32 games).

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