Providence Bruins Beat Hershey Bears 3-0

Photo: Tori Hartman

The Hershey Bears played a pretty good game for 52 minutes and outshot the Providence Bruins by an impressive margin for most of the game, but it wasn’t enough on Wednesday night as the Bruins outlasted the Bears 3-0. The Bears record falls to 12-13-0-3. The same two teams do it again on Saturday at Giant Center. Puck drop is 7:00 pm.

STARTERS
Vitek Vanecek (3-2-0, 2.00 GAA, .909 sv%) got the start between the pipes for the Bears. Zane McIntyre (9-4-1, 2.85 GAA, .900 sv%) started in goal for the Bruins. The starting forward lines and defensive pairs for the Bears:

Bourque-Boyd-Barber
Bau-Graovac-Simpson
O’Brien-Langlois-Gazley
Albert-Sill-G.Mitchell
Ness-Lewington
Siegenthaler-Williams
Labrie-Johansen

Bears scratches – Connor Hobbs, Anthony Peluso, Tommy Hughes, and Mason Mitchell.

FIRST PERIOD
The Bruins looked to jump to an early 1-0 lead, but the refs quickly ruled an early tally was scored on a high stick. The Bruins led in shots on goal 5-0 after the first 10 minutes of play. The Bears would finally pick up the pace, registering the next eight shots on goal, but none of them finding the back of the net. It was one of those nights.

The Bruins would be awarded the game’s first power play with 8:08 left in the opening frame when Tyler Graovac was called for tripping, but Hershey would successfully squash the Bruins man-advantage. The Bears led in shots on goal 8-5 with just under 6 minutes to play in the period.

The Bruins would capitalize just 8 seconds into their second power play of the game (Gazley, tripping) when Colton Hargrove scored on a tic-tac-toe one-timer from the slot at the 14:58 mark.

The period would end with the P-Bruins leading 1-0. The Bears outshot the Bruins 12-8 for the opening stanza. The Bruins were 1 for 2 and the Bears 0 for 1 on the power play for the first 20 minutes.

SECOND PERIOD
A pedestrian start to the second period, as the Bears continued to lead the shot parade, leading 4-1 after the first 7 minutes of play. The Bears would get their second man-advantage at 10:14 of the middle frame when the Bruins Jakob Forsbacka Karlsson was called for holding, but the Bears failed to capitalize on the power play. The Bears led in shots on goal 5-3 for the period with 7 minutes remaining in the middle frame.

The second period would conclude with no scoring. The Bears outshot the Bruins 11-4 for the second period, and led 23-12 through two periods of play. The Bruins were 1 for 2 and the Bears 0 for 3 on the man advantage after 40 minutes.

THIRD PERIOD
The Start of the third period saw more of the same, with no scoring. The Bruins held an early 4-2 shot advantage with 10 minutes left in the game.

The Bruins would seal the win with a late goals by Anton Blidh at 13:05 and Zach Senyshyn at 14:35 to give the Bruins a 3-0 win. This was the Bruins eighth-consecutive win.

The Bears were outshot 8-5 in the final frame, but outshot the Bruins 28-20 for the game.

By Jon Sorensen

SHAVINGS