Patrick Williams, TheAHL.com Options Author
After an extended winter – and an particularly lengthy March – the Hershey Bears made time for some fast hibernation this week.
The Bears had each Monday and Tuesday off; on Sunday, that they had returned to Large Heart for the primary time following a 10-game highway stretch, the longest within the franchise’s 87-year historical past.
This weekend ought to wake them up, although. Tonight is a fast go to to the rival Lehigh Valley Phantoms, who’re making an attempt to lock up a playoff berth and solidify their very own place within the Atlantic Division standings. Then comes a Saturday-Sunday set with the visiting Hartford Wolf Pack, a determined crew that might be making an attempt to make one final push to the postseason.
The Bears enter the house stretch having misplaced 4 of their final 5 video games, together with getting swept by the Utica Comets in a home-and-home final weekend.
“Right here’s the factor,” head coach Todd Nelson mentioned following Sunday’s 7-4 loss to the Comets of their first residence recreation in almost a month. “We received outworked. I can’t clarify it. All in all, it’s fairly disappointing. There’s no excuse for getting outworked by a crew [playing] their third recreation in three nights.”
The factor is, Large Heart has introduced its share of issues for the Bears this season. Hershey is simply seventeenth within the AHL on residence ice with a 17-13-1-0 report (.565). Along with Utica’s win on Sunday, Bridgeport (6-1 on Nov. 15), Toronto (7-3 on Dec. 21), Syracuse (5-0 on Feb. 8), and Belleville (6-2 on March 5) have all come into Hershey and routed the house crew.
In order the Bears this spring try and turn into the primary crew to win three consecutive Calder Cup titles for the reason that Springfield Indians did so in 1960-62, even Nelson admits to that little bit of perplexion from his vantage level on the Hershey bench. Actually there are some believable theories for a let-down weekend. The schedule. Accidents. Trying too far forward to the postseason.
However all the identical, these home-ice points have left the Bears in a little bit of a troublesome spot, at the very least by their latest requirements. Charlotte and Wilkes-Barre/Scranton have crept to inside three factors of the Bears on the prime of the Atlantic Division. Final season, Hershey received the Atlantic by 18 factors.
The highest two groups within the division will keep away from a best-of-three first-round sequence. At stake is an opportunity to complete the common season, relaxation a bit, regroup, after which start a postseason journey that might stretch almost two months – because it has for the Bears these previous two springs. Slip down to 3rd place or decrease, nevertheless, and a season can unravel in a short time in such a quick sequence; the decrease seed received each first-round sequence within the Atlantic final spring.
Nelson desires no a part of that state of affairs. His whole roster must be nicely conscious of the ever-tightening playoff race that they face this month. The big standings board contained in the Hershey dressing room sees to that. They’ve a chance to perform one thing that no AHL crew has executed in 63 years.
“You play that first spherical, and you might be executed in 5 days,” Nelson mentioned. “That’s not our commonplace right here in Hershey. We wish to give us each probability to go after that third Cup.”
That pursuit doesn’t come with out placing calls for on the crew. For the reason that begin of the 2022-23 season, the Bears have performed 248 regular-season and Calder Cup Playoff video games. Particularly for many who have been round for all and even most of that point, that wear-and-tear, these shortened summers, could make for a banged-up, beat-up crew. Three gamers – forwards Hendrix Lapierre, Luke Philp and Garrett Roe – missed final Sunday’s recreation after accidents the night time earlier than. Captain Aaron Ness and ahead Mike Sgarbossa haven’t performed since March 1. Jake Massie has been lacking from the Hershey blue line since Jan. 22.
Nelson has repeatedly harassed his philosophy that he doesn’t accept regular-season success. The common season is about establishing a degree of play that his gamers can take with them into the postseason.
“The fellows are getting excited,” Nelson mentioned. “The climate is getting nicer. We’re getting nearer to the playoffs. This isn’t a nasty factor {that a} little bit of stress is being placed on us proper now. I’m considerably involved, however I’ve been by this earlier than.”
On the American Hockey League beat for twenty years, TheAHL.com options author Patrick Williams additionally at the moment covers the league for NHL.com and FloSports and is an everyday contributor on SiriusXM NHL Community Radio. He was the recipient of the AHL’s James H. Ellery Memorial Award for his excellent protection of the league in 2016.
