Sgarbossa a Portrait of Consistency

October 24, 2023

In today's modern American Hockey League, it's become increasingly rare for players to remain with the same franchise, but one player that has seemingly withstood the test of time for the Hershey Bears has been Mike Sgarbossa.

On Friday, the veteran forward netted the game-winner in a hard-fought 3-2 win at Providence, giving the Bears their first win in Rhode Island since January of 2020, then on Sunday he skated in his 600th professional game (223 of them with Hershey) at Bridgeport, where he netted the game-winner in overtime for his 200th Bears point as the Chocolate and White escaped with a 3-2 win against the Islanders to give Hershey a perfect 3-0-0-0 record on the weekend.

It's all in a day's work for the Campbellville, Ontario native, who began his pro career over a decade ago in the Colorado Avalanche system, and included stops with the Anaheim, Florida, and Winnipeg organizations, before eventually making his way to the Washington Capitals/Hershey Bears pipeline beginning in the 2018-19 season.

In that time, he's led the Bears in both overall scoring and assists twice, and has been a mainstay on the power play unit. He's put up four seasons of 40 or more points. Sgarbossa's 200 points as a Bear are also the most among any player on Hershey's active roster.

Now in his sixth campaign with Hershey, and under contract with Washington through the 2024-25 season, Sgarbossa has quietly gone about his business, a portrait of consistency. But the 31-year-old isn't preoccupied with personal statistics. True to form, the milestones hadn't crossed his mind, and was quick to spread the praise when asked to give his thoughts.

"600 pro games...I mean, a lot goes into it over many years, and a lot of people to thank and a lot of people that contributed to kind of keep me going," Sgarbossa said. "The 200 points as a Bear, anytime you get points, it's not just you, it's the linemates, it's the team, it's coaches, it's strength coaches back home. There's a lot of people I could thank a lot of people that contributed to it, and there's probably too many to name, but it's something that I'll be able to share with my kids and be able to pass on and something I'll be proud of."

So what has made Hershey the right fit for Mike Sgarbossa?

"I think I have a good relationship with the organization - I think we kind of have the same values, the same morals, and we kind of know what each other wants out of the other. And I think, especially for me now in my career, I'm not young anymore - so just still showing these guys what it's like to be a pro, how to be a pro, and what to do consistently every day.

"I think that's the biggest struggle for young players, especially when they come to the American League, which tends to be their first time playing pro hockey, is to find that [consistency]. You might have a good game, and then you have three bad ones. You might have three bad ones and one good one. So just trying to find that - everyone sees the finished product out on the ice, you see the goals and the flashy stuff. But the work behind the scenes is what I find is important. I think that's what the organization values as well."

Bears head coach Todd Nelson shared in that sentiment in what has made Sgarbossa a fixture in the team's lineup.

"In the locker room, he's just a good pro. Every young guy can learn something when they watch the way he practices," Nelson said. "He practices at a very high level. Last year we had this conversation with [Hendrix] Lapierre. His intensity had to get up more in practice. And I said, 'Watch Scarbs practice.' And he went 'Holy cow,' That's something that a young kid has to learn and Lapierre, he's learned that because his practice habits are excellent right now, and he's playing very good hockey. Sgarbs is the kind of guy that leads by example.

"He's always been a guy that's been able to put up points for us. But he's a human being just like everybody else. He makes mistakes and as a coaching staff, we have to correct him. The thing is, he's just a good all-around player, and we're happy to have him."

As the team gears up for an intense week of games against division rivals Wilkes-Barre/Scranton and Lehigh Valley, Sgarbossa maintains a level-headed approach to the task at hand.

"Well, the expectation is to win - nothing changes. Yeah, we had a good day off [Monday] to reset and kind of rest your body. That was a tough trip, when you have three games on the road in a row with the travel - you need that time to recover. Wilkes-Barre/Scranton and Lehigh Valley are division games. And especially in our division, you play them so many times. If you don't do well against them, it's going be tough to get to the playoffs. So our first look at them and we'll try and put our best foot forward, but I think we just kind of take it as another game and prepare the same way we did for the last three.

Depth helping Bears blue line

At the start of the season, Nelson was very upbeat about the Bears' depth. That depth was tested last week on the blue line, with the recall of Hardy Haman Aktell to Washington (where he made his NHL debut on Friday at Montreal) and an upper-body injury sustained by Aaron Ness that kept him out of Saturday's game at Providence and Sunday's match at Bridgeport.

Nelson was glad to see the way his reinforcements stepped up.

"It was excellent. You know what, Jake Massie goes in there, we know what he's able to do," Nelson said. 'He plays good hockey. And then we had [Nicky] Leivermann go in on Saturday - he played well. And then we put [Colin] Swoyer in on Sunday and he's really smooth back there, a pretty mobile player. We were talking about it as a staff - it's nice having depth. 

"When you go through these situations with injuries or call-ups, the hardest part about having really good depth is that everybody wants to play. It's a task for us as coaches to try to keep the dressing room intact, because let's face it: when you don't play, guys are disappointed and we expect that. But the reality of the thing is that we just have to make sure that those players that are not playing are ready to go. Our depth carried us through all last season, and I guarantee that it'll carry us through this season."

Shepard to make NHL debut, Stevenson back with Bears

Tuesday morning also came with the news that the Capitals had rotated out their backup goaltenders, with Clay Stevenson making his way back to Hershey and Hunter Shepard heading up to the majors.

Then came this nugget of information from Caps head coach Spencer Carberry following morning skate:

It's been a long journey for the 27-year-old Shepard, who will finally make his NHL debut after spending several weeks up with the big club last season, but never seeing game action.

"I think it's awesome. Anytime a guy gets his first game in the National Hockey League, it's always special. And as a coaching staff, you're proud when guys go up. The same thing happened with Hardy [Haman Aktell] when he got called up. His first NHL game was in Montreal. That's a heck of a first game in that city. Anytime a player gets called up, you're extremely happy for them and you're excited to watch them play, and as a coaching staff we feel we have something to do with that, and we help this person come along and improve their game."

The good news of Shepard's NHL debut also creates - at least in the interim - opportunities for Hershey's other goaltenders, Stevenson and rookie Mitch Gibson, who stopped 21 shots in his professional debut for the Bears in Sunday's overtime win over the Islanders.

"Gibby played well in his first game, just allowing two goals. He looked very calm in the net for his first game - that was really nice to see," Nelson said. "He had to make some big saves for us down the stretch when [Bridgeport was] pushing hard in the third period. So it was a really good debut for him."

How will the Bears coaching staff manage the workload of their two rookie puck-stoppers?

"I think we'll just take it game by game. I talked to [associate goaltending coach Juha Lehtola] about that quite a bit. We don't like painting ourselves into a corner and getting three games ahead of ourselves. We'll just focus on the task at hand tomorrow. Clay's gonna get the start tomorrow and then we'll see how that goes.

"When we get to Friday, we'll make that decision about who goes [over the weekend] and go from there. But once again, depth helps."

Written by Jesse Liebman, Bears media specialist.