The Springfield Thunderbirds locked horns with the Hershey Bears in a goaltenders’ duel on Saturday night, with Hershey squeaking away with the extra point in a 2-1 overtime win inside the Giant Center. The Bears rallied past the T-Birds on Sunday night, 3-2. (Photo courtesy of Springfield Thunderbirds)
HERSHEY, PENN. – The Springfield Thunderbirds (16-15-2-0) succumbed to a third period comeback from the Hershey Bears (16-9-2-3), who defeated Springfield 3-2 on Sunday inside the Giant Center.
The first period was another battle of the goaltenders with Pheonix Copley and Philippe Desrosiers matching save-for-save in the opening period, as Hershey outshot Springfield 10-8.
Both teams had power play chances to take a 1-0 lead, but the two penalty killing units maintained their strong showings to keep the game deadlocked.
Springfield’s fourth line would be the unit to break the ice at the 9:01 mark of period two, as Jonathan Ang skated a puck deep into the right wing corner of the offensive zone after surviving a lengthy Bears’ threat at the other end. Ang drew the attention of two defenders and slid a perfect pass to the tape of Paul Thompson right in the blue paint, and the Springfield captain whacked it through Copley on the second effort to make it a 1-0 game.
Less than four minutes later, the T-Birds took a page out of Hershey’s book from Saturday night as Daniel Audette positioned himself right outside of Copley’s crease and redirected a Rob O’Gara wrist shot through the Hershey netminder to extend the Springfield lead to 2-0 at 12:59. Desrosiers had the answers at the other end, improving his save total to 22 through 40 minutes.
The Bears did not let their winning streak go by quietly, though, as Matt Moulson brought the Bears within one on a seeing-eye wrister at 1:39 of the final period to make it a 2-1 game. Just over six minutes later, Moulson tied the game with wrister over the blocker of Desrosiers in the slot area at 7:45.
After setting up each of Moulson’s goals, Phillippe Maillet ended up on the receiving end of a Moulson pass and scored the game-winning goal on a breakaway at 10:43 of the final period.
The T-Birds look to bounce back on Friday night as they host the Providence Bruins inside the MassMutual Center at 7:05 p.m.
For more ticket information or to become a 2019-20 Springfield Thunderbirds ticket package member, or to purchase single game tickets, call (413) 739-GOAL (4625) or visit www.SpringfieldThunderbirds.com. – Courtesy of Springfield Thunderbirds
