BEARS SCORE FIRST, PIRATES TAKE OVER

March 9, 2015

HERSHEY, Pa. – Stan Galiev opened the scoring with his league-leading 13th power play goal, but Jordan Martinook helped lead the way with a goal and two assists, as the Portland Pirates scored five unanswered goals to snap the Hershey Bears’ home win streak at five games in a 5-1 decision on Sunday evening in front of 10,803 fans at GIANT Center.
 
Galiev would bury his league-best eighth first-goal – which is also Hershey’s league-best 38th – when he accepted a beautiful cross-ice feed from Andre Burakovsky.  Galiev settled the puck and sent a snap shot over the glove of Pirates goaltender David Leggio at 3:02 to put Hershey in front.
 
Moments later, Chris Brown would hold the puck on a line rush and fire a shot that beat Leggio to the stick side, but his shot rang hard off of the left goal post.
 
Portland would late tie the score on a shot from Dylan Reese.  Greg Miller attempted a pass to the net front, but the puck would deflect all the way to the left point.  Reese stepped into a low shot and the puck eluded Philipp Grubauer at 13:07.
 
Joel Hanley then struck on a power play to give Portland a 2-1 lead at 15:21.  Driving to the crease, Hanley got a stick on a hard cross-ice pass from Henrik Samuelsson to bat it behind Grubauer.
 
The score would hold through the entire second period, as both Leggio and Grubauer would make several key saves to keep the opponents off the board.
 
Portland then opened up a 3-1 lead at 4:02 of the third.  On a delayed penalty call, Martinook spun a behind-the-back feed to Justin Hodgman, who snapped the puck past Grubauer from the left hash mark.
 
The Bears found more penalty trouble later, and on another power play chance, Philip Samuelsson made it a 4-1 game.  Via quick puck movement, Hodgman would slide one last pass across the slot to the left circle, where Samuelsson buried a wrist shot at 7:09.
 
Martinook rounded out the scoring when he completed a two-on-one rush with Alexandre Bolduc with 3:25 left in regulation.
 
Grubauer made 30 saves in the game but fell to 23-12-4.  Leggio won his first game with Portland with a 23-save effort, and improves to 8-13-0 overall.
 
The loss was just the Bears’ sixth in regulation at home (23-6-3-1), and the fourth of the calendar year.  The Bears’ record stands at 36-16-5-2 (79 points) and the club remains tied for the most points in the AHL.
 
Hershey begins a stretch of six consecutive road games when they head north to take on the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins in a key East Division battle on Wednesday, March 11 at 7:05 PM.  Fans may listen to the M&C Foreign Car Parts pre-game show beginning at 6:25 on the Bears Radio Network of affiliates WQIC-FM 100.1, WTKT-AM 1460, WOYK-AM 1350 and via the iHeart Radio app (1460 AM).
 
 
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The Bears return home on Friday, March 27 to host the Manchester Monarchs.  All fans in attendance will receive a ticket to the ARCA Racing Series and NASCAR Sprint Cup Series practice on June 6, courtesy of Pocono Raceway.  Individual tickets for this and all remaining home games are on sale at the GIANT Center box office, by calling (717) 508-BEAR or online at TicketMaster.com.
 
 
NOTES: The Bears scratched C Joel Broda, LW Dane Byers, D Jon Landry, LW Liam O’Brien, C Jim O’Brien, C Chandler Stephenson and D Patrick Wey… The Pirates scratched D Evan Oberg, C Brendan Shinnimin, D Jordan Southorn, C Corey Trivino and G Mark Visentin…The Bears ended the night 1-for-4 on the power play and 5-for-7 on the penalty kill…C Andre Burakovsky recorded his first AHL point with the assist on the Bears’ power play goal.