Andrew Pustay for Inside the Rink.
HERSHEY, Pa. – The Hershey Bears and Utica Comets faced off Wednesday night at the GIANT Center. The Bears came away with a 6-3 victory.
Less than two minutes into the game, Hershey’s Brett Leason opened the scoring with his tenth goal of the season on a redirection from Henrik Rybinski. Andrew Cristall also assisted on the goal. Less than five minutes later, Leason struck again for his eleventh goal of the season, this time assisted by Rybinski and Ivan Miroshnichenko. Nathan Legare got Utica on the board with his seventh goal of the season, assisted by Jonathan Gruden and Marc McLaughlin.
The second period saw three goals from the Bears and one from the Comets. In his second game for Hershey, Kaden Bohlsen notched his second goal of the season at 5:02 thanks to assists from Matt Strome and Graeme Clarke. Twelve seconds later Ilya Protas put home a rebound on a shot from Miroshnichenko, giving Protas his 20th goal of the season and Miroshnichenko his nineteenth assist of the season. Jon McDonald was also credited with an assist. Following Protas’s goal, Comets goaltender Jakub Malek was pulled and replaced with Nico Daws. The Comets’ Kyle Criscuolo scored his eighth goal of the season at the 17:42 mark. Austin Strand and Brian Halonen assisted on the goal. With just .1 second to go in the period, Cristall put Hershey up 5-2 with his tenth goal of the season. Corey Schueneman and Leason assisted on the goal.
In the third period, Schueneman netted his fourth goal of the season at the 18:10 mark on an empty net, assisted by Grant Cruikshank. With just over a minute remaining in regulation, Utica’s Josh Filmon scored his third goal of the season. Shane Lachance and McLaughlin assisted.
Of note, neither team was assessed a penalty during the game. Malek stopped 9 of 13 shots before he was pulled and Daws stopped 12 of 13. The Bears’ Clay Stevenson stopped 37 of 40 shots. Attendance was 9,576.
Check out this photo gallery from Inside the Rink’s Andrew Pustay for highlights from the game.
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