Patrick Williams, TheAHL.com Features Writer
After a long winter – and an especially long March – the Hershey Bears made time for some quick hibernation this week.
The Bears had both Monday and Tuesday off; on Sunday, they had returned to Giant Center for the first time following a 10-game road stretch, the longest in the franchise’s 87-year history.
This weekend should wake them up, though. Tonight is a quick visit to the rival Lehigh Valley Phantoms, who are trying to lock up a playoff berth and solidify their own place in the Atlantic Division standings. Then comes a Saturday-Sunday set with the visiting Hartford Wolf Pack, a desperate team that will be trying to make one last push to the postseason.
The Bears enter the home stretch having lost four of their last five games, including getting swept by the Utica Comets in a home-and-home last weekend.
“Here’s the thing,” head coach Todd Nelson said following Sunday’s 7-4 loss to the Comets in their first home game in nearly a month. “We got outworked. I can’t explain it. All in all, it’s pretty disappointing. There’s no excuse for getting outworked by a team [playing] their third game in three nights.”
The thing is, Giant Center has presented its share of problems for the Bears this season. Hershey is just 17th in the AHL on home ice with a 17-13-1-0 record (.565). In addition to Utica’s win on Sunday, Bridgeport (6-1 on Nov. 15), Toronto (7-3 on Dec. 21), Syracuse (5-0 on Feb. 8), and Belleville (6-2 on March 5) have all come into Hershey and routed the home team.
So as the Bears this spring attempt to become the first team to win three consecutive Calder Cup titles since the Springfield Indians did so in 1960-62, even Nelson admits to that bit of perplexion from his vantage point on the Hershey bench. Certainly there are some plausible theories for a let-down weekend. The schedule. Injuries. Looking too far ahead to the postseason.
But all the same, those home-ice issues have left the Bears in a bit of a difficult spot, at least by their recent standards. Charlotte and Wilkes-Barre/Scranton have crept to within three points of the Bears at the top of the Atlantic Division. Last season, Hershey won the Atlantic by 18 points.
The top two teams in the division will avoid a best-of-three first-round series. At stake is a chance to finish the regular season, rest a bit, regroup, and then begin a postseason journey that could stretch nearly two months – as it has for the Bears these past two springs. Slip down to third place or lower, however, and a season can unravel very quickly in such a brief series; the lower seed won both first-round series in the Atlantic last spring.
Nelson wants no part of that scenario. His entire roster should be well aware of the ever-tightening playoff race that they face this month. The large standings board inside the Hershey dressing room sees to that. They have an opportunity to accomplish something that no AHL team has done in 63 years.
“You play that first round, and you could be done in five days,” Nelson said. “That’s not our standard here in Hershey. We want to give us every chance to go after that third Cup.”
That pursuit does not come without putting demands on the team. Since the start of the 2022-23 season, the Bears have played 248 regular-season and Calder Cup Playoff games. Especially for those who have been around for all or even most of that time, that wear-and-tear, those shortened summers, can make for a banged-up, beat-up team. Three players – forwards Hendrix Lapierre, Luke Philp and Garrett Roe – missed last Sunday’s game after injuries the night before. Captain Aaron Ness and forward Mike Sgarbossa have not played since March 1. Jake Massie has been missing from the Hershey blue line since Jan. 22.
Nelson has repeatedly stressed his philosophy that he does not settle for regular-season success. The regular season is about establishing a level of play that his players can take with them into the postseason.
“The guys are getting excited,” Nelson said. “The weather is getting nicer. We’re getting closer to the playoffs. This isn’t a bad thing that a bit of pressure is being put on us right now. I’m somewhat concerned, but I’ve been through this before.”
On the American Hockey League beat for two decades, TheAHL.com features writer Patrick Williams also currently covers the league for NHL.com and FloSports and is a regular contributor on SiriusXM NHL Network Radio. He was the recipient of the AHL’s James H. Ellery Memorial Award for his outstanding coverage of the league in 2016.
