Photo: Laval Rocket
The Hershey Bears beat the Laval Rocket 6-3 Friday night at Place Bell in Laval, Quebec, for their second straight win. Travis Boyd notched four goals for his second career AHL hat trick and first career four-goal game in the first ever meeting between the Bears and the Rocket. The Bears return to action Saturday night when they visit the Belleville Senators. Puck drop is 7:00PM.
STARTERS
Vitek Vanecek got the start in goal for the visiting Bears. Charlie Lindgren got the start in net for the Rocket. The starting forward lines and defensive pairs for the Bears:
Forwards:
Whitney-Boyd-Barber
Walker-Graovac-Simpson
Bau-Langlois-Gazley
O’Brien-Sill-G.Mitchell
Defensive Pairs
Ness-Hobbs
Siegenthaler-Lewington
Johansen-Williams
Scratches – Adam Chapie, Anthony Peluso, Mason Mitchell and Tommy Hughes.
FIRST PERIOD
The Bears special teams would be the star of the opening period. The Bears would open the scoring with a shorthanded goal by Liam O’Brien at 12:16 of the opening frame. The score was setup by a nice defensive play by Jonas Siegenthaler, who dove and knocked the puck away from Laval, and feeding O’Brien for the breakaway goal.
Travis Boyd would give the Bears a 2-0 lead late with a power play goal at 19:44 of the opening frame.
The period would conclude with the Bears holding on to a 2-0 lead. Shots on goal were 6-5 in favor of the Bears.
SECOND PERIOD
The Rocket would cut the Bears lead in half with a deflected goal by Adam Cracknell at 11:39 of the middle frame.
But the Bears would get it right back with a goal from Travis Boyd at 9:42 of the second period, his second of the game. Joe Whitney was credited with the lone assist.
But Laval would respond when Antoine Waked dented twine with 3:01 remaining in the second period.
The period would end with the Bears clinging to a 3-2 lead. Laval outshot the Hershey 9-7 for the second period, and led 14-13 after two periods of play.
THIRD PERIOD
The Bears would stretch their lead to 4-2 with a goal from Travis Boyd at 8:26 of the final frame, completing the hat trick for Boyd. This was Boyd’s second career AHL hat trick.
Travis Boyd was not done, as he would score his fourth goal of the game at 15:39 of the final frame.
Liam O’Brien would add an empty net goal for the Bears. Laval would add a late goal to make it 6-3.
Riley Barber would drop the gloves with Markus Eisenschmid with 3.4 seconds left in the contest.
The Bears outshot Laval 14-6 for the final frame.
SHAVINGS:
- Bears first meeting with the Laval Rocket.
- Vitek Vanecek wins his ninth game of the season.
- Tracis Boyd scored four goals for his second career hat trick and first career four goal game.
- Attendance: 6,524
- AHL box score is here.
SCENES FROM LAVAL
And Boyd scored his goals when his little girl, Hayden, was in the hospital having surgery. I don’t know what the nature of the surgery was but it was successful. Her hand appeared to be splinted up. His tweet:
“We spent a long, hard, and sleepless week in the hospital caring for Hayden. Beyond thankful for a successful surgery, her amazing mother, all the support and for being able to score 4 goals for our little girl tonight!”
(Another note in the “making me feel old” department — Boyd is younger than my younger child who’s still unmarried and still childless.)
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