Bears Cap Road Trip with 5-4 Shootout Win Over Crunch

November 23, 2024

Ethen Frank scored in regulation and again in the fourth round of the shootout, and Hunter Shepard turned aside five shots in overtime and all four opposing shooters to lift the Hershey Bears (13-4-2-0) to a 5-4 victory over the Syracuse Crunch (7-6-1-2) on Saturday night at Upstate Medical University Arena, as the club continued its 2024-25 season, presented by Penn State Health.

With the victory, the Bears improved their road record to 8-0-1-0 start the season, matching Hershey's 2006-07 squad (8-0-0-1) for the franchise mark for best road point streak from the start of a campaign.

BOX SCORE

NOTABLES:

• Grant Cruikshank, playing in just his second game as a Bear, opened the scoring with his first goal for Hershey at 5:06 of the first period, taking a stretch pass from Chase Priskie and motoring in on Brandon Halverson before beating the goaltender.
• Ethen Frank gave Hershey a 2-0 lead at 18:53 after a failed Syracuse clearing attempt glanced off of Brad Hunt's arm and caromed into the slot, where Frank was able to bury his team-leading 12th of the season. Frank later added an assist on Pierrick Dube's power-play goal at 13:58 of the third period that gave Hershey a 4-2 lead.
• Henrik Rybinski scored his fourth of the season at 2:01 of the third period to give Hershey a 3-1 lead, with Nicky Leivermann and Bogdan Trineyev earning assists.
• Hunter Shepard earned his 10th win of the season to tie for the league lead and improved to 5-0-1 over his last six games with the triumph, and earned his 65th career victory as a Bear to tie Ed Chadwick for 12th in franchise history.

SHOTS: HER 36, SYR 25

GOALTENDING: HER - Hunter Shepard, 21-for-25; SYR - Brandon Halverson, 31-for-35

POWER PLAY: HER - 1-for-4; SYR - 0-for-2

THEY SAID IT:

Bears head coach Todd Nelson on what this team's resiliency this week has meant:
"Well, it says a lot, but when you look at the game tonight, we're happy to get the two points, but we had multiple two-goal leads in the third period that we gave up, and we've got to be able to lock the game down. That's on us - we made it too interesting. But you also have to tell it like it is: five out of six points over this road trip. That's a pretty good accomplishment."

Nelson on the team's ability to perform on the road:
"I think this group has been through a lot the last couple of years, especially the group of returning players from last year's team. They've been through the pressure of playing on the road in the playoffs and I think our guys just feel comfortable. That's great, but we have to work on playing well at home. I think we're only one game over .500 at home. But the guys are focused on the road and they just feel comfortable. It doesn't matter how loud the building gets; I think with what we've gone through in the past has certainly helped us out."

Nelson on the play of Grant Cruikshank through his first two games with Hershey:
"He's been consistent with his effort. He's working hard out there. He's a smart kid that knows the system and I dropped down to three forward lines late in the game and he was one of the players on a line. It speaks volumes of him that after just watching a game and a half,  the rest of the game I felt comfortable putting him out there in those key situations. He works hard and he works for everything he gets and he got rewarded with a nice goal tonight."

Nelson on the play of Hunter Shepard:
"Minus playing the puck, he was pretty good tonight [chuckles]. He's always there, he's a winner. He finds how to get things done. Doesn't matter if the score's 5-4 or if it's a 1-0 game or 2-1 game. He just finds ways to win."

Ethen Frank on the team encountering difficulties in putting away teams:
"This whole weekend we were getting the lead and playing with the lead up until the last few minutes of the game, and so I think that's something that we can build off of. We just have to figure out how to finish games and keep on the gas."

Ethen Frank on drawing inspiration from Sgarbossa and Dube for his shootout winner:
"I had watched Sgarbs and Dubes go, and it looked like [Halverson] was pretty agile moving side to side, and I tried to come in on the same angle that Dubes did, and it looked like [Halverson] was was getting ready to push off and wasn't ready for a quick shot, so I just tried to shoot it low and hard, and it went in."

NEXT GAME:

The Bears continue the 2024-25 regular season, presented by Penn State Health, when they return home to face the Laval Rocket on Wednesday, Nov. 27 at 7 p.m. at GIANT Center for Canteen Vending Turkey Shoot Night. Purchase tickets for the game by CLICKING HERE.