Bears Open Homestand with 2-1 Loss to Phantoms

October 30, 2024

The Hershey Bears (6-2-1-0) opened a five-game homestand with a 2-1 loss to the Lehigh Valley Phantoms (2-3-1-1) on Wednesday night at GIANT Center, as the club continued its 2024-25 season, presented by Penn State Health.

The loss snapped Hershey's point streak at six games (5-0-1-0).

BOX SCORE

NOTABLES:

• Jake Massie scored his first of the season to tie the score at 1-1 at 16:05 of the first period off assists from Ethen Frank and Chase Priskie.
• Jacob Gaucher scored the go-ahead tally for Lehigh Valley at 8:56 of the third.
• Goaltender Hunter Shepard suffered his first defeat of the season, snapping a five-game win streak from the start of the season for the goaltender.

SHOTS: HER 30, LV 23

GOALTENDING: HER - Hunter Shepard, 21-for-23; LV - Cal Petersen, 29-for-30

POWER PLAY: HER - 0-for-5; LV - 0-for-3

THEY SAID IT:

"You know what? Tonight's game kind of scared me. I was concerned about it because just coming off the three-in-three with the travel - I know how I feel right now - anytime you have a three-in-three, you usually have time to reset. I'm not saying that's why we lost, but I thought that was a snoozefest out there tonight. Both teams were flat. They ended up scoring one more goal. That's all it came down to. We had our chances, we couldn't find the back of the net. We had an open net on the power play in the second period; couldn't find it there and they ended up scoring in the third. And that was the difference-maker." - Todd Nelson on the quality of play for the game

"Yeah, we were definitely not at our best tonight. We came out, we were a little flat and we had spurts of good moments, but never was able to really roll the lines over and get our forecheck going and create down there [...] We left points on the line tonight, so we'll just look to regroup and battle for first place this weekend." - Brennan Saulnier

NEXT GAME:

The Bears continue the 2024-25 regular season, presented by Penn State Health, when they host the Charlotte Checkers on Saturday, Nov. 2 at 7 p.m. at GIANT Center for Toyota Back-to-Back Calder Cup Champions Keychain Night. The first 5,000 fans in attendance will receive a Back-to-Back Calder Cup Champions keychain, courtesy of Toyota. Purchase tickets for the game by CLICKING HERE.