Bears Clip Checkers 03.24.12
The last time the Charlotte Checkers visited Giant Center during last year’s Calder Cup playoffs, an overtime goal by Nicolas Blanchard crushed the Bears’ playoff hopes and sent them to the golf course for the summer. However, on Saturday night at the same venue, Tomas Kundratek’s bone crunching hit on Blanchard in the third period knocked him from the game and propelled the club to a 2-1 win and their 5 straight victory.
Up until the time the Kundratek hit was registered at exactly the six minute mark of the third period, the Bears had created little in the way of offense against the Checkers and goaltender Mike Murphy, but trailed only by a goal largely in part by goaltender Dany Sabourin, who was making his 6 straight start between the pipes for the Bears. However, the situation changed less than two minutes later when Chris Bourque intercepted a clearing pass at the Charlotte blueline and found Cody Eakin who managed to beat Murphy from close range to tie the game at a goal each.
“I tried to go down low to Kaner and the guy got his stick on it,” said Bourque. “I don’t know if he was trying to ice it, but I just gloved it down and snapped a high pass to Eakin and he was behind the D and all alone.”
Twenty-one seconds after Eakin earned his 12 goal of the season, Sabourin, on his side, repelled Riley Nash’s attempt to give his club back their lead and kept the game tied at a goal apiece.
“The shot was coming on my blocker side and I was trying to deflect it in the corner, but it hit the inside of my blocker instead and bounced right back to his stick. The puck was bouncing and he really couldn’t get a good shot. I put my glove in front of it. I’m just glad I stopped it,” said Sabourin.
A boarding penalty to Charlotte’s Sean Dolan at 13:58 sentt the Bears’ potent power play unit, which had been denied in their three previous chances by the visitors, on the ice for another try, only this time with the game in the balance. Murphy and company managed to keep the Bears at bay for the first forty-seven seconds of the advantage despite some pressure. But then during a stoppage in play, Bears’ head coach Mark French made a tactical decision and called for a timeout instead of waiting until the end of the game. The move paid dividends when the man his teammates call “Potsy”, Ryan Potulny, potted his 25 goal of the season.
“I thought that one unit had generated some good offensive chances early in the power play. I thought it was a good time to utilize it to try to keep those guys out for two minutes. We had changed a little bit of the strategy of what we had wanted to do in the power play in the zone, and we just wanted to talk as a group and get a quick breather so those guys could play the full two minutes,” explained French.
Despite the fact that the Bears played the last 1:34 of the game shorthanded due to a Zach Miskovic penalty and the fact that the Checkers had pulled Murphy for an extra attacker, Sabourin and his supporting cast weathered the storm to give the club their 36 win of the season.
Sabourin, who stopped 30 shots to notch his 16 win of the season and has backstopped the Bears to wins in his last five starts, acknowledged that he is playing very well, but refused to shoulder all of the success himself.
“It’s a streak as a team because guys are blocking shots and diving to keep the puck out,” Sabourin said,” “They hung in there tonight, so every win we get is because of the team.”
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Bears Bounce by Albany in Shoot Out
3.17.12
Though Saturday night’s game between the Hershey Bears and Albany Devils was played on the St. Patrick’s Day holiday, it was a game more fitting of another holiday-Halloween.
The contest consisted of a seemingly endless series of pucks clanging off the goalpost, combined with some bizarre bounces which led to a peculiar and almost surreal type of atmosphere; but in the end it was the Bears, backstopped by goaltender Dany Sabourin who prevailed with a 3-2 shootout win.
Sabourin, who is now undefeated in his last four starts (3-0-0-1), made his third straight start for the first time this season.
“He’s been good,” said Bears’ coach Mark French regarding his decision to start Sabourin instead of Holtby. “If you look back at the Springfield game, he let in one goal, and then you go St. John’s and he was very good in the shootout loss, and then you come back to last night where I thought he was really strong. Tonight, we opened it up in the third period to really try and push, and we gave up some glorious opportunities the other way and he made some game-saving saves. The one in overtime on (Peter) Harrold on the back door was a great save.”
Defenseman Tomas Kundratek was the offensive hero for the Bears in regulation, scoring a pair of goals, both by benefit of fortuitous bounces. Kundratek, who totaled four points (1g, 3a) against the Phantoms on Friday night, has scored as many points in the two games this weekend (6) as he did in his previous 24 matches.
Sabourin, who credits his recent success to the extra work he does in non-game scenarios, told me he wasn’t originally supposed to get the start, but was given the nod because of Holtby’s impending recall to the Washington Capitals. He made two sparkling stops within a span of 32 seconds early in the third period: one a sliding save on a backhand bid by Tim Sestito followed by a glittering glove save on Joe Whitney.
“I think practice tells you how you are, and I’ve been feeling good in practice the last few weeks and working hard in them, and it’s showing in games,” said Sabourin.
In the shootout, Cody Eakin used his patented move to give the Bears a 1-0 lead in the second round, and then Boyd Kane followed up Eakin’s effort by craftily sliding a puck by Kinkaid that beat him five-hole.
“I don’t know. I can’t remember,” said Eakin about whether his move is an original or a modified version of someone else’s move. “I was doing it in junior a lot and I just come down and fake a slapshot, and that usually freezes the goalie, and I slide it one way and back through the five-hole. It’s just one of things that you end up doing and it’s been working for me, but the last little while it hasn’t, and I kind of shied away from it, but tonight it worked. Hopefully I can continue to get that rhythm back.”
Notes:
Kinkaid, who beat the Bears in a shootout earlier this season at Giant Center, played his college hockey at Union College in New York state, the same institution that former Bears netminder Kris Mayotte (2008-2009) tended the twine for.
Eakin’s shootout goal broke a 0-for-18 drought for the Bears in the shootout.
The Bears improved to 2-1 in their three games contested on St. Patrick’s Day since their move to Giant Center.
The Bears scratched Andrew Carroll, Jacob Micflikier, Christian Hanson, and Graham Mink (all injured), in addition to Zach Miskovic and Joel Rechlicz (both healthy).
