AHL Morning Skate: 5.9.22 | TheAHL.com

The Hershey Bears did not spend much time Sunday night basking in victory.

Not with a bus to catch for a game 90 minutes to the north some 23 hours later. They ensured that bus ride by hammering out a 2-1 home win in Game 2 of their first-round series with the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins. The long-standing rivals will settle the series tonight at Mohegan Sun Arena.

“It’s a business trip,” Bears head coach Scott Allen said of the return to Wilkes-Barre/Scranton. “Our business is to win one hockey game.”

Hershey defenseman Dylan McIlrath, a 2017 Calder Cup winner with the Grand Rapids Griffins, provided the game-winning goal Sunday. McIlrath’s long right-point shot midway through the second period put Hershey ahead 2-0 and allowed the Bears to withstand the push from the visitors that followed.

Hershey’s Game 2 win followed a 3-0 defeat in Game 1 that had left the Bears openly unhappy with their performance. In that 3-0 loss, Hershey mustered just 23 shots. On top of their issues, Hershey also had to do without injured forwards Joe Snively and Kody Clark for Game 2. Back from the Washington Capitals on a conditioning stint for the series, the Bears had counted on Snively’s addition to spark their offense.

“Just unacceptable,” McIlrath said of Game 1. “That wasn’t the way we know we can play.”

Allen also knew his players had much more to offer.

“We knew what we had to do,” the always plain-spoken Allen said. “We knew there wasn’t a guy in this organization that was even a little bit satisfied with how we played in Game 1. We addressed the disappointment. We had to get by it. We had to make a couple of adjustments.

“All the credit goes to the 20 guys who…got it done.”

Following the Game 1 loss on Friday, Allen went to work to make those needed adjustments.

Said Allen, “Pre-practice [Saturday], we had a meeting. We watched the video, because we needed to get back to who we are and what we are.

“I just knew this team was not going to [repeat a bad performance], especially in front of these fans. We love our fans. Our fans love this team. Our players were already jacked up as it was, but I thought the fans definitely brought it to another level for our guys.”

Now it is time to finish the next chapter of the Bears-Penguins rivalry, one that matches the intensity between their National Hockey League parent clubs, the Capitals and the Pittsburgh Penguins.

“We played these guys enough,” McIlrath said. “We know what they’re about. They know what we’re about.”

If Allen was unhappy with his club following Game 1, Penguins head coach J.D. Forrest had a different reaction to his club dropping Game 2.

“We played really hard from start to finish,” Forrest told the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton media via the team website. “A couple of bounces maybe didn’t go our way. We knew they had their backs against the wall. We knew we were going to get their best, and they played a solid game.

“We just couldn’t find a way to put another one behind [Pheonix Copley] there.”

Forrest and the Penguins can look toward having forward Jonathan Gruden back for Game 3 tonight. Gruden missed Game 2 with a one-game league suspension.

Game 2 is done. Now it is on to Game 3.

“It’s one of those things where it’s just a matter of outwilling the other team,” Forrest continued. “We both played [Sunday], the same amount of rest. We’re both going back to Wilkes-Barre. All things are equal.”

― Patrick Williams