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TONIGHT'S GAME PREVIEW: BEARS at ICECAPS

12/11/2012 -

TONIGHT’S GAME NOTES

HERSHEY BEARS at ST. JOHN'S ICECAPS
Tuesday, December 11, 2012 - 6:00 PM EST
Mile One Centre

REFEREE: Mark Lemelin (#41)
LINESMEN: Joe Maynard (#24) & Justin Day (#79)

BEARS at ICECAPS: After a set of three games in three nights wrapped up on Saturday, the HERSHEY BEARS took to the skies and have landed on the "Rock" to take on the St. John’s IceCaps from beautiful Newfoundland. The two teams will meet tonight and tomorrow, in the second and third matchups of the regular season series. St. John’s is the top AHL developmental affiliate of the Winnipeg Jets.

ALL-TIME: Tonight is the fifth all-time matchup between the two teams. The BEARS have a record of 1-3-1 against St. John’s since the club re-joined the AHL last season.

THE LAST TIME: The BEARS and IceCaps met at GIANT Center on November 10, with St. John’s skating to a 2-1 victory. Goaltenders Dany Sabourin and Mark Dekanich dueled in the first period and kept the opposition off of the scoresheet. Forward Eric O’Dell finally broke the scoreless battle when he scored his fourth goal of the season 5:19 into the second period. Barry Almeida then evened things up with time winding down in the middle stanza, scoring his second of the year off of assists from Matt Pope and Jeff Taffe. The BEARS then got themselves into penalty trouble, allowing the IceCaps six opportunities on the power play. Defenseman Derek Meech, who helped set up O’Dell’s goal, scored a power-play goal by depositing a rebound of John Albert’s shot past Sabourin at 6:56 of the third.

Sabourin had a strong game in net, turning aside 25 of 27 shots. Dekanich earned the win with 18 saves on 19 shots.

FUN FACT ON 2011-12:

The last time that the BEARS played at Mile One Centre was on March 10, 2012 – the first night of setting the clocks ahead for Daylight Saving Time – and considering the 1 ½-hour time change between Hershey and St. John’s, it was a test of everyone’s mathematics as the team had to return home early the next morning. Not to mention, the game ran long – as a five-round shootout was needed for the host IceCaps to come away with a 3-2 victory. Dany Sabourin was named the game’s number two star in the setback.

2012-13 SEASON SERIES:

Sat. November 10, 2012	ST. JOHN’S	GIANT Center
Tue. December 11, 2012	@St. John’s	Mile One Centre
Wed. December 12, 2012	@St. John’s	Mile One Centre
Fri. January 25, 2013	ST. JOHN’S	GIANT Center

RECENT RECAPS: The BEARS tried for a perfect week on Saturday when the Hamilton Bulldogs came to GIANT Center for the first time since February of 2009. The BEARS were unable to hang onto leads of 1-0 and 2-1, however, and fell by a 3-2 final score. Ryan Potulny scored his second of the week to wipe out a skid of 19 consecutive power plays without a goal, giving the BEARS an early advantage. Hamilton tied the game on a second-period power play goal by Mike Blunden, but Potulny struck again on a pass from Steve Oleksy to put the BEARS right back on top. Patrick Holland again pulled the ‘Dogs even when he beat Braden Holtby on the rebound of Brendon Nash’s chance, and Joonas Nattinen finished the comeback by scoring late in the middle stanza. Goaltender Cedrick Desjardins withstood the BEARS third period-pressure by turning aside all eight chances sent his way.

St. John’s, meanwhile, is currently on a three-game winless skid. Most recently, the IceCaps hosted the Springfield Falcons in a pair of games on Friday and Saturday, coming up short by two goals in each game. The hosts fell 5-3 on Friday, with Kael Mouillierat, Kevin Clark, and Ray Sawada netting the IceCaps goals. Left winger Joey Sides chipped in two assists for the IceCaps. Springfield’s Cam Atkinson scored twice, including the game-winner and the empty-net insurance marker.

EAST DIVISION STANDINGS (as of December 11):

POS	TEAM	GP	W	L	OTL	SOL	PTS	WIN%	GF	GA
1.	Syracuse	23	14	6	1	2	31	.674	84	67
2.	Binghamton	20	13	5	1	1	28	.700	64	48
3.	W-B/Scranton	22	13	7	1	1	28	.636	65	55
4.	HERSHEY	24	11	12	1	0	23	.479	64	70
5.	Norfolk	22	10	12	0	0	20	.455	63	68

A PAIR OF FIRSTS: RW Mathieu Beaudoin scored his first career HERSHEY goal on Friday at Wilkes-Barre/Scranton. Beaudoin is in his second tenure with the BEARS, having spent seven games with the Chocolate and White in 2007-08.

Additionally, D Kevin Marshall’s overtime-winning tally on Friday at Wilkes-Barre/Scranton was his first as a member of the BEARS. Marshall’s last goal came on January 14, 2012 while he was playing for the Adirondack Phantoms.

STEVE-O: D Steve Oleksy is one of two BEARS players to contribute offensively in all three games last week. Oleksy picked up an assist in each game and a cumulative plus-3 rating.

TAFFE AT THE TOP: C Jeff Taffe was the other player to record at least one point in all three BEARS games last week. He added two assists and a plus-1 rating on Saturday to total four helpers over the three games.

CAPTAIN & TENURE: Captain Boyd Kane appeared in his 315^th career HERSHEY game on Saturday night for 38^th place all-time. Kane needs two more games to catch Brian Dobbin (317 - 37^th); is just 12 games away from 900 in his AHL career; and, combining his ECHL, AHL and NHL totals, needs just 10 to reach 1,000 professional games played.

LUCKY SEVENS: Three BEARS players are currently tied for the team goal-scoring lead with seven strikes each: Jon DiSalvatore, Zach Hamill and Tomas Kundratek. Kundratek ranks tied for fourth among AHL defensemen in goals scored, and is ranked tied for 12^th in overall scoring from the blue line.

GRAB THE LEAD: The BEARS have a record of 5-2-0-0 when leading after one period, and are 8-0-0-0 when leading after two.

TRANSACTIONS: The BEARS have added D Patrick Wellar and D Brett Flemming to the roster this week.

HEAD TO HEAD: HERSHEY is without its lone goal scorer against the IceCaps earlier in the season – left winger Barry Almeida. Jeff Taffe and Matt Pope lead the way with an assist each. For St. John’s, Derek Meech leads the way with two points, followed by Eric O’Dell, John Albert, Carl Klingberg and Ray Sawada all with one point each.

BEARS vs. ICECAPS – TEAM LEADERS:

	HERSHEY	St. John’s
Games Played	FIVE TIED (24)	FIVE TIED (24)
Goals	J. DiSalvatore, Z. Hamill, T. Kundratek (7)	Maxime Macenauer, Zach Redmond (6)
Assists	Jeff Taffe (17)	Derek Meech (10)
Points	Jeff Taffe (23)	Derek Meech (13)
+/-	Zach Hamill (+8)	Ivan Telegin (+3)
PP Goals	Tomas Kundratek, Jeff Taffe (3)	FOUR TIED (3)
SH Goals	Garrett Mitchell (2)	Spencer Machacek (1)
GW Goals	Zach Hamill (2), Cameron Schilling (2)	Derek Meech (3)
PIMs	Steve Oleksy (91)	Dean Arsene (45)

Wins	Braden Holtby (8)	Eddie Pasquale (6)
GAA	Braden Holtby (2.62)	Eddie Pasquale (2.45)
Save %	Braden Holtby (.917)	Eddie Pasquale (.924)

BEARS vs. ICECAPS – SPECIAL TEAMS:

	HERSHEY	St. John’s
Power Play	16-for-116 (13.8%) – 23^rd in AHL	19-for-129 (14.7%) – 22^nd in AHL
Penalty Kill	88-for-107 (82.2%) – 19^th in AHL	89-for-108 (82.4%) – 18^th in AHL

BEARS RECENT TRANSACTIONS:

12/10/12	ADD	D	Brett Flemming	Reassigned by Washington (NHL) from Reading (ECHL)
12/7/12	ADD	D	Patrick Wellar	Recalled from loan to Reading (ECHL)

ICECAPS RECENT TRANSACTIONS:

12/10/12	ADD	D	Cody Sol	Reassigned by Winnipeg (NHL) from Colorado (ECHL)
12/6/12	ADD	C	Kael Mouillierat	Signed to PTO
12/6/12	ADD	LW	Shawn Weller	Signed to PTO

BEARS AMONG THE AHL:

RW Garrett Mitchell: T,2^nd – SH goals (2).

D Tomas Kundratek: T,3^rd (D) – PP points (3-7-10); T,4^th (D) – goals (7); T,5^th (D) – PP goals (3); T,12^th (D) – scoring (7-8-15).

D Garrett Stafford: T,17^th (D) – scoring (1-13-14).

D Steve Oleksy: 3^rd (D) – PIM (91).

ICECAPS AMONG THE AHL:

G Eddie Pasquale: T,13^th– GAA (2.45).

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TONIGHT'S GAME PREVIEW: BEARS at ICECAPS

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