BEARS STYMIE MONARCHS TO CLOSE OCTOBER

October 31, 2014

MANCHESTER, N.H.– Philipp Grubauer made 26 saves, Casey Wellman padded his power-play goal scoring lead and Kris Newbury tallied his 500^th American Hockey League point as the Hershey Bears skated past the Manchester Monarchs 4-0 on Friday night at Verizon Wireless Arena.

The Bears continued their strong penalty killing of the early season, negating two Manchester chances in the opening period.  Both goaltenders faced a few tricky scoring chances but kept the puck out of their nets after one period.

Things changed drastically in the second, as Hershey exploded for their three goals beginning with a turnover forced behind the Manchester net.   Newbury did the honors, and immediately sent a pass in front.  Dane Byers wasted no time in ripping a one-timer over Jean-Francois Berube’s shoulder for his third goal of the season at 11:37.

The Bears then earned their first power play of the game, and made good just 24 seconds into it.  Tomas Kundratek sent a slap-pass from the left point right onto Wellman’s tape, and the forward redirected the pass behind Berube from the hash marks at 15:34.  The goal was Wellman’s league-leading fifth power play marker.

Chris Brown, playing in his first game with Hershey since his reassignment, opened the game up with his first of the season with 23 seconds left in the middle period.  His snap shot from the left circle got by the short side of Berube for a 3-0 advantage.

After three more successful penalty kills in the third period, Hershey put the contest away when Steve Oleksy fired a slapper into an empty net with three seconds left on the clock.

Grubauer improves to 3-2-0 with the win, while Berube made 18 saves on 21 shots and fell to 2-2-0.

Hershey closes October with a record of 6-2-0-0 and holds the East Division lead heading into the new month.

The Bears continue their weekend road trip tomorrow, November 1, with a 7:00 PM face-off against the Worcester Sharks.  Fans may listen to the game on the Bears Radio Network of affiliates WQIC-FM 100.1, WTKT-AM 1460, WOYK-AM 1350 and iHeart Radio (1460 AM), or may watch the game for a fee on AHLLive.com. 

The Bears return home to battle the Hartford Wolf Pack on Saturday, November 8 at 7:00 PM.  Tickets for this game and all home contests may be purchased at the GIANT Center box office, by calling (717) 508-BEAR or online at TicketMaster.com. Information on group tickets and season tickets for the 2014-2015 Hershey Bears regular season is available by calling (717) 508-BEAR.  Many different flexible plans are offered and start as low as $170.
 
NOTES: The Bears scratches were D Erik Burgdoerfer, RW Chris Conner, RW Stanislav Galiev and D Patrick Wey… Manchester scratched LW Vincent Arseneau, D Andrew Bodnarchuk, D Nick Ebert and D Kevin Gravel… Three stars: 3-Brown, 2-Grubauer, 1-Wellman…Hershey finished the night 1-for-2 on the power play and 6-for-6 on the penalty kill…Kris Newbury became the seventh Hershey player since 2009 to record his 500^th AHL point in a Hershey sweater (Jeff Taffe, Jon DiSalvatore, Boyd Kane, Bryan Helmer, Alexandre Giroux and Keith Aucoin)…The Bears have scored the game’s first goal in all eight contests…Tonight was the first game in which Hershey was outshot by the opposition.