The Hershey Bears fell to the Providence Bruins 5-2 Friday night at the Dunkin’ Donuts Center in Providence, Rhode Island. Providence would strike first in the opening frame and stretch their lead to 2-0 midway through the second before Tyler Graovac would get the Bears on the scoreboard. The Bruins would add two early goals in the third period and hang on for the 5-2 win. The Bears return to action Saturday night when they visit the Bridgeport Soundtigers. Puck drop is 7:00 PM. 

STARTERS
Vitek Vanecek got the start between the pipes for the Bears. Zane McIntyre got the start for Providence. The starting forwards and defensive pairs for the Bears:

Forwards:
Walker-Boyd-Barber
Bourque-Albert-Simpson
Bau-Graovac-Simpson
O’Brien-Sill-Peluso

Defense:
Ness-Hobbs
Johansen-Lewington
Siegenthaler-Williams

Bears Scratches – Jeremy Langlois (upper body), Mason Mitchell, Garrett Mitchell (veteran), Hubert Labrie.

FIRST PERIOD
Providence would strike first with a goal by Ryan Fitzgerald just 3:42 into the contest, and that would be all of the scoring in the opening frame. Providence outshot the Bears 8-5 for the opening frame.

SECOND PERIOD
The Bruins would stretch their lead to 2-0 with a goal by Jakub Zboril at 10:46 of the second period. This was Zboril’s first goal of the season.

Tyler Graovac would cut the Bruins lead in half with a goal at 14:48 of the middle frame. The power play goal snapped the Bears 0-for-20 skid on the man-advantage. Most previous PPG came at the 6:47 mark of the 2nd period on January 13, courtesy of Riley Barber.

Anthony Peluso and Jeremy Lauzon would drop the mits late in the middle period.

Providence outshot Hershey 13-8 for the second period.

THIRD PERIOD
Providence would score two quick goals to start the final frame. Tommy Cross would stretch the Bruins lead to 3-1 just 28 seconds into the third period and Josh Hennessy would make it 4-1 at the 4:48 mark of the third period.

The Bears would cut the lead to 4-2 with a goal by Zach Sill at 7:11 of the final frame. Connor Hobbs and Aaron Ness were credited with the assists. Sill redirected a laser by Hobbs from the point.

Trailing 4-2 the Bears had an extended 5-on-3 power play midway through the period but Hershey was unable to convert on the two man advantage.

The Bruins would restore their three goal lead with their third power play goal of the night. Austin Czarnik would notch the game’s final tally at 13:06 of the final frame.

The Bears outshot the Bruins 16-7 for the final period. The Bears went 1 for 6 and the Bruins went 3 for 7 on the power play.

SHAVINGS

• The Bears winless streak is extended to seven games, their longest winless streak since 2012.
• Nathan Walker and Riley Barber lead the Bears in shots with four each,
• Bears outshot Bruins 29-28 for the game.
• Attendance: 9,348
• AHL box score is here.

By Jon Sorensen

SCENES FROM PROVIDNCE

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Go Bruins!!!

A post shared by Steph West-Puckett (@fieldpeaz) on Jan 26, 2018 at 5:48pm PST