Nick Leivermann made his playoff debut in Game 4, the 10th different defenseman employed by Bears head coach Todd Nelson this postseason.
A seventh-round draft pick by Colorado in 2017, Leivermann played five seasons at the University of Notre Dame before signing an AHL contract with Hershey last summer. He served as team captain for the Fighting Irish in 2022-23 and spent most of this season with South Carolina of the ECHL, playing only three regular-season games in the AHL.
Leivermann played primarily in a pairing with veteran captain Dylan McIlrath in Thursday’s win.
“He did a great job,” Nelson said of Leivermann, who had not played a game since South Carolina’s season ended in April. “He’s a guy that can skate well, move the puck really well. For not playing for a couple of months, he stepped in in a very tough situation and had a very strong game.”
Alternate captain Aaron Ness, who has missed the last eight games due to injury, took pre-game warmups before Game 4.
Firebirds head coach Dan Bylsma summed up the Bears in his post-game media availability on Thursday: “They’re a championship team.”
So he was not surprised that Hershey came through when they most needed it, tying the series at 2-2.
“They brought the speed and the forecheck early on and hemmed us in,” Bylsma said. “Not as clean puck execution from us, and it led to their playing well. We expected it. We got it. They were very good. That was their best game of the series so far.
“It was a desperate time for them, and they brought it.”
Now it’s the Firebirds who must push back tonight before the series returns to Hershey, where they will have to win at least once if they are to take the Calder Cup. Losing tonight, of course, would force the Firebirds to take both games at Giant Center.
“It’s a massive game,” Bylsma said of Game 5. “Two teams trying to race to four wins. We expect it go all 420 minutes. There’s give-and-take. There are punches thrown each way. They took their swings and took it to us at times.
“In order to get to four wins, someone’s going to have to get the third one, and that’s coming [tonight].”
After setting an all-time playoff attendance record in 2023, the AHL will break that mark tonight with another capacity crowd expected at Acrisure Arena for Game 5.
Last year, AHL teams drew 551,138 fans over 85 postseason games, the highest total since the league started keeping official attendance figures in 1962-63. Tonight will be the 81st game of the 2024 Calder Cup Playoffs.
The postseason average of 6,861 fans per game (to date) is also a league record, as is the total of more than 7.3 million fans between the regular season and playoffs combined.
― with files from Patrick Williams
