Bears Blank Monsters 3-0 to Open Road Trip

March 7, 2025

The Hershey Bears (34-15-5-0) opened their 10-game road trip with a 3-0 win over the Cleveland Monsters (28-17-5-5) on Friday night at Rocket Arena, as the club continued its 2024-25 season, presented by Penn State Health.

Nicky Leivermann, Alex Limoges, and Luke Philp scored for Hershey, while Clay Stevenson made 24 saves to earn the shutout for the Bears. Hershey's record against Cleveland in the season series improved to 2-1-0-0.

BOX SCORE

NOTABLES:

• Nicky Leivermann netted his second of the season to give the Bears a 1-0 lead at 9:17 of the opening frame.
• Alex Limoges scored a power-play goal to give Hershey a 2-0 lead at 14:38 of the first period. The goal marked Limoges' 200th career professional and AHL point (92g, 108a).
• Luke Philp capped the scoring with a power-play goal at 16:10 of the third period.
• Chase Priskie earned assists on both of Hershey's goals with the man advantage.
• Clay Stevenson made his 100th professional appearance (64 games in the AHL; 36 games in the ECHL) and earned his second shutout of the season as well as his second consecutive road shutout after blanking the Charlotte Checkers on Feb. 23, becoming just the third goaltender in team history to record consecutive road shutouts (Tom Lawson, Ilya Samsonov). Stevenson's shutout also marked the ninth of his Hershey tenure, tying him with Freddy Cassivi for 12th in club history.

SHOTS: HER 31, CLE 24

GOALTENDING: HER - Clay Stevenson, 24-for-24; CLE - Jet Greaves, 28-for-31

POWER PLAY: HER - 2-for-6; CLE - 0-for-3

THEY SAID IT:

Bears head coach Todd Nelson on what he liked about the team's performance:
"I thought everybody played pretty well tonight. It started with Clay Stevenson in net - he played a real strong game for us when we broke down - he was there for us. But everybody played pretty well and once again, special teams were huge. We got two power-play goals, we shut them down, just a good effort for 60 minutes."

Nelson on the play of Nicky Leivermann, who netted the game-winning goal:
"He has a good knack of finding holes to jump in off the rush, and that's how he scored his goal. Lappy came in and delayed and found Nicky coming as a second wave, and then he was all alone in the slot and he just was able to beat their goaltender."

Nelson on the contributing offense from Alex Limoges and Luke Philp on the power play:
"It was huge. I mentioned before the game, you know how they're very important and it was good to see Limo score, but really I was really happy that Philp scored a goal. He's been working his tail off and he had some chances throughout the game - he was creating stuff and so it was nice to see him get rewarded with the power-play goal tonight."

NEXT GAME:

The Bears continue the 2024-25 regular season, presented by Penn State Health, when they face the Cleveland Monsters on Saturday, March 8, at 4 p.m. at Rocket Arena. Hershey returns home to host the Utica Comets on Sunday, March 30, at 5 p.m. at GIANT Center for Hall of Fame Night and Toyota Postcard Night. Purchase tickets for the game by CLICKING HERE.