An historic regular time of year for the Hershey Bears came to some sort of conclusion on Sunday night time in Philadelphia when Alexandre Giroux’s goal in the final just a few seconds of regulation lifted the particular Bears to a 3-2 win over this Phantoms. Now the Bears can position the regular season in the rear view and focus their points of interest on the goal they’ve got for the last 10 months: turning out to be the first Bears team within nearly four decades to do it again as AHL Calder Cup champions.
The Contains are coming off a franchise record 51-win season (51-17-6-6). These people claimed the team’s first division title since 1993-94 in addition to forged the league’s best overall record for the first time because 1987-88.
On paper at least, the first-round sequence with the Albany River Rats is really a mismatch. Hershey finished with the league’s very best record and 114 points (one more club record). Albany recorded Eighty one points, fewest of any playoff group and fewer than three clubs that missed the Calder Cup playoffs.
The Bears took 6 of the eight games from the Rats in the season’s collection, and had a league history 19 straight victories around Albany until the Rats finally restored a 3-1 decision over the Holds at Giant Center on Feb. 17.
The games aren’t performed on paper and Hershey knows it has to win nearly a third (Of sixteen, to be exact) of the variety of games it just won within the regular season in order to achieve its main goal: consecutive Calder Cup games for the first time since 1957-58 and 1958-59.
Hershey’utes deep and diverse attack characteristics seven 20-goal scorers, led by Alexandre Giroux (Forty two) and Dave Steckel (30). Giroux along with Steckel also led the Carries (and finished second and third in the league) in plus/minus along with plus-29 and plus-28 respectively. Besides the seven 20-goal scorers, Hershey has three others using at least 15 tallies. Skin Jakub Klepis, who scored only half a dozen goals but totaled Thirty two points in just 31 game titles with the Bears this season.
Giroux became the first Bear to web 40 or more goals in a season since Christian Matte netted 43 and Serge Aubin 42 within 1999-00.Chris Porter Saint Louis Blues Jersey
In addition to his offensive abilities, Steckel is the league’s premier shutdown center and a player which many feel belongs in the NHL. He tied for the nfl lead with five shorthanded ambitions, and only four of their goals came on the electricity play.
Joey Tenute (28 goals), Chris Bourque (25), Kyle Wilson (25), Tomas Fleischmann (22) in addition to Eric Fehr (22) are Hershey’s various other 20-goal men.
Bears coach Bruce Boudreau did a good job of dealing with a lineup that was in a nearly frequent state of flux. Hershey set a golf club record in using 50 unique players to achieve those Fifty-one victories.
As the Bears prepare to defend their title, they have a very potent asset as to what Yogi Berra would likely term: “deep detail.”
Of the 50 players exactly who suited up for Hershey in 2010, 33 are still at the team’ohydrates disposal and available for playoff job. Another (recently signed school prospect Andrew Gordon) could arrive in town within days. Three players are currently unavailable with injuries. It is hoped of which defenseman Dean Arsene will be able to return to action from the second round if the Contains are able to vanquish the Rats. Right wing Fehr is out indefinitely with a back ailment. His returning is much more difficult to predict.
If traumas and/or ineffectiveness threaten to derail the Bears’ repeat train, Boudreau will have options at his removal.
A dozen of those players are generally defensemen, and only two of them (Arsene as well as Tyler Sloan) played in as many as 45 activities for the Bears this season. Hershey’s backline will be aided by the return associated with 2004 Washington first-rounders Jeff Schultz and also Mike Green, both of whom spent a great deal of the season with all the Capitals. Hershey managed to turn over an important portion of its blueline near the trade deadline, bringing in Troy Milam, Tim Wedderburn along with Andy Hedlund for the season’s remaining six weeks.
During last season’s world-class run, veteran goaltender Frederic Cassivi was a stalwart and a workhorse in the Bears’ material. He played every instant of all 21 playoff contests, and also played in 82 games such as the regular season. Cassivi logged 55 wins last season, Thirty four in the regular season and 16 in the playoffs. The particular 31-year-old native of Sorel, Quebec won’capital t have to shoulder the entire insert this time around.
Goaltender Maxime Daigneault, Washington’s second-round choice (59th overall) in the 2002 NHL Entry Draft, performed well in his very first full AHL season. Daigneault posted the 23-6-0 record with a 2.Sixty four goals against average and a .910 save percentage. This season signifies the first time in franchise record that the Bears had two goaltenders reach the 20-win plateau in the identical season. If Cassivi needs a night time off during the playoffs, Boudreau offers enough confidence in Daigneault to obtain the 23-year-old netminder the nod.
The River Mice will be embarking upon their particular first playoff voyage in 7 years.
Albany is a shared internet marketer; its roster is filled with prospects from the two Colorado Avalanche and the Carolina Tornados. Since both parent golf clubs failed to make the Stanley Cup playoffs this season, the River Rats is going to be at full strength in the get go.
What they won’t become is at home. One of the Subjects made mention of wanting to “acquire it for the city,” and so the River Rats adopted in which as their postseason slogan and had a number of hats made that study, “For the city.” The chapeaus don’t specify which city, nevertheless. After playing their Forty regular season home activities in Albany,
the Rats will head an hour north in order to Glens Falls, NY where they’lmost all camp out for the “home” portion of their East Division semi-final collection with the Bears.
Albany’s common home sheet is the Situations Union Center in Albany, nevertheless a Martina McBride concert is ordered at the TUC on Sunday, Apr interest rates. 22, the same night since Game 3 vs. Hershey. The Times Union Center plays sponsor to the circus beginning with Apr. 26. So the Glens Drops Civic Center, built in Nineteen seventy nine and with 4,806 permanent car seats, will serve as the Rats’ home rink to the first-round series with Hershey.
The games inside Glens Falls will mark the first playoff contests staged at the making since 1999, when it competed host to an opening around series between the Adirondack Crimson Wings and the Rochester Americans. This Amerks swept that series inside four straight, and the Chicken wings suspended operations two months later on. The River Rats played any preseason game at Glens Falls last Sept., drawing a sellout group of more than 5,000 for any 4-1 win over the Bridgeport Sound Lions.
Albany’s attack is spaced by 28-year-old veteran pivot Keith Aucoin, that racked up a franchise record 99 points (27 ambitions, 72 assists) in 2006-07. Aucoin finished in a tie for 2nd in the AHL in scoring and was one of four 20-goal getters for your River Rats.
Albany might be without of those four when the collection gets underway on Wed. Matt Murley, a native of nearby Troy who played his school hockey at R.Delaware.I., missed each of the previous seven games of the season with an upper body injury. He is questionable for the series opener in Giant Center.
Ryan Bayda led the actual Rats in goals,Shayne Corson Saint Louis Blues Jersey planting 29 in just 55 games. Shane Willis, who had Thirty goals and 44 factors for the Carolina Hurricanes in 2000-01, wrecked 20 goals and 43 points in just 43 video games for Albany this season. Willis skated with the Carries in 2003-04.
The Albany forward has a high ranking also features 33-year-old Antti Laaksonen, a veteran involving 483 regular season NHL contests with Boston, Minnesota and Denver. Laaksonen totaled nine goals as well as 16 points in 24 games with the Rats in 2010.
Rookie defenseman Kyle Cumiskey led Albany blueliners in scoring using 33 points (seven ambitions, 26 assists). Cumiskey, a seventh-round (222nd general) Colorado choice in the The year 2005 NHL Entry Draft, got into eight games with the parent Avs as part of his first season as a professional.
Tyler Weiman handles the bulk of the netminding tasks for Albany. He finished the summer season at 27-22-3 in 54 performances, posting a 2.99 goals against average and a .905 preserve pct. in the process. A fifth-round (164th all round) Avalanche choice in the 2000 NHL Entry Draft, Weiman is a third-year professional in his first full season of AHL duty. First-year pro Justin Peters is Weiman’s backup. Peters has been Carolina’s second-round (38th overall) pick in the 2004 NHL Entry Draft.
By This Numbers – The Bears finished ninth in the league with power play prowess (Teen.9%) while Albany was 14th (19.4%) … Hershey is fifth in the group in penalty killing with a kill rate of Eighty five.6% while the River Rats tend to be 23rd at 80.2% … This Bears scored 153 goals traveling this season, most in the Japanese Conference and second-most in the AHL … Albany surrendered 258 goals, most of any of the AHL’ohydrates 16 playoff teams … Giroux was strapped for fifth in the AHL along with 16 power play desired goals … Aucoin is fourth in the nfl with 25 power play assists … Fifteen current Has saw some action either in this playoffs or during the regular season with the 2005-06 Calder Cup world-class team.
Notes – Albany’s Johnny Boychuk, associated with the Bears in 2004-05, was crowned the first River Rat in 4 seasons to play in all Eighty regular season games. Boychuk became a junior teammate of Hershey’utes Tomas Fleischmann and Deryk Engelland at Moose Jaw … A couple of ex-Caps are behind the Albany counter. Tom Rowe, who became the 1st American-born player to net Thirty goals in an NHL season as he was a member of the Hats in 1978-79, is Albany’s brain coach. Rowe’s assistant can be Joe Sacco, who skated three conditions in the District from 1999-2002 … Lake Rats right wing Cody McCormick and defenseman Jeff Finger are also ex-Bears. Hand was a college teammate of Hershey’s Matt Hendricks at St. Cloud St., as ended up being Albany blueliner Tim Conboy.