Rapid Reaction: Bears Learning Lessons of Complete Effort

The first meeting between the Hershey Bears and Hamilton Hammers started well enough.

Bogdan Trineyev’s goal just over six minutes into the first period of Wednesday night’s game at GIANT Center put Hershey ahead 1-0, as Trineyev swatted in a loose puck that had pinballed off the pads of Vítek Vaněček for his fifth of the season to move into a tie for the team lead in goals.

The Hammers for their part also struck iron a handful of times in the second period. But eventually they managed to get on the board thanks to Quinn Finley’s tally midway through the frame, and the visitors pulled ahead for good with a power-play goal from Pierre Engvall midway through the third and a dagger from Robby Fabbri with under two minutes to play in an eventual 4-1 decision in favor of the visitors.

“I think their team is better than their record. They’ve got some good guys, especially up front that can finish, and we just kind of let our foot off the gas there in the second, and they tilted the ice, and we just couldn’t climb our way back in,” Bears head coach Derek King said following the loss. “We had some shifts with momentum, but most of the time we were back on our heels.”

Hershey has alternated losses and wins over its last five outings, despite instances of a wide disparity in shot differential: the Bears have outshot their opponents 180-105 in that span, yet have been outscored 15-13.

King pointed to some of Hamilton’s players who have a demonstrable track record of putting the puck in the net – such as Fabbri and Liam Foudy – who have a scorer’s touch and the ability to finish plays.

“We’ve got some guys that are getting chances that are not quite there yet, but I liked our push,” King said. “We had some chances around the net. Pucks were bouncing, it just wasn’t going in for us.”

The bench boss was asked about Lydnen Lakovic as one such player who has shown a dominant elusiveness at times, darting around the opposition, but who has also encountered some struggles as he learns the ropes in his first year of professional hockey.

“He does look like he’s dominating out there, and sometimes he is. He just has to get to that inside of the ice; that’s where you’re going to score some goals. A lot of shots coming from the perimeter a bit, but if he can – he didn’t drive one to the net earlier in the period, and then he finally took one wide and cut in – that’s what he needs to do,” King said. “If he does that repeatedly, repeatedly, he’s going to get more opportunities because the ‘D’, they can’t keep up with his speed. They’re going to back off, and then the shots will start coming. But he’s got to get inside and start paying the price to get to the net.”

Despite the setback of the loss, King’s outlook is that Hershey’s puck luck should eventually turn, as long as the Bears can deliver a consistent effort.

“I’m a believer we’re going to get there, but the frustrating part is we take that half a period off or a period off – there’s a lot of good players in this league and there’s a lot of good players that have played some NHL games, guys that can finish – so you take that period off, or half a period off, you spend a lot of time in your zone and you’re tired.

“Now finally we get pucks back and we start putting the pressure on them, but we’re so tired we can’t sustain that pressure all the time. That’s probably the frustrating part, but I still like the way we’re playing, if we can just put a solid three periods in, and we’ve done that this year and we’ve won hockey games.”

Written by Bears media specialist Jesse Liebman