Saturday night’s game at the GIANT Center lived up to the hype as the Hershey Bears rallied to beat the Rockford IceHogs 5-4. Rockford looked to be in the driver’s seat early, building a commanding 3-1 lead, but the Bears fought back to snap their four-game losing streak. Aaron Ness led the way for Hershey, putting up two points and burying the game-winner in the third period. It was a tough result for the IceHogs to start their road trip after such a strong start, but they get another shot at the Bears this Sunday for the GIANT Teddy Bear Toss. After that, Rockford finally heads back home to host a game on Friday, January 9th.
Rockford IceHogs Lineup:
Savoie - Seney - Pitlick
Hayes - Toninato - Anderson
Misiak - Engelbert - Lombardi
Boucher - Cates - Mylymok
Korchinski - Rinzel
Kuzmin - Allan
Harding - Perrott
Commesso
Berezhnoy
Hershey Bears Lineup:
Cristall - Protas - Trineyev
Miroshnichenko - Rybinski - Leason
Mateiko - Smallman - Clarke
Smith - Cruikshank - Bitten
Ness - Chesley
Schueneman - Allen
McDonald - Belpedio
Gibson
Stevenson
Henrik Rybinski opened the scoring, giving Hershey a 1-0 lead on his fourth goal of the season early in the first period at 17:52. He collected the puck from Bogdan Trineyev, who took a pass from Aaron Ness before getting it to Rybinski, who went on a breakaway to flip a shorthanded goal over Drew Commesso. Just a few moments later, Dominic Toninato tied it up 1-1 at 15:28 with his sixth goal of the season when Joey Anderson took a pass from Dmitri Kuzmin, who sent the puck along the wall to behind the net, and after Toninato finished a down low passing play with Anderson, he found the back of the Bears' net.
Only 19 seconds into the middle frame, Jamie Engelbert potted his seventh goal of the season to give Rockford their first lead of the night, 2-1. Martin Misiak drove towards the puck with both Graeme Clarke and Cam Allen, grabbing it to pass it behind him to Kevin Lombardi, and as Engelbert got to the net, he took a pass on the back post from Lombardi. Kuzmin picked up his fourth of the season to double the Hogs' advantage 3-1 from in the slot with a blast past Mitch Gibson at 13:11 of the second. Ilya Protas ended Rockford's scoring binge to make it 3-2 at 9:21 with a power-play goal when he scored on the rebound of Andrew Cristall's shot for his 13th of the season. Louie Belpedio picked up the secondary assist on the second Hershey tally. Brett Seney scored his 10th goal of the season to regain the two-goal advantage for the IceHogs when he shot the puck off a Bears defenseman and past Gibson on the power play at 3:39 to make it 4-2. With 1:10 left on the clock in the second, Hershey responded with a goal from Brett Leason on his sixth of the season to bring the Bears back within a goal off a pass from Rybinski.
Cam Allen found the back of the net to tie it up 4-4 early into the third period at 18:42, picking up his second goal of the season when he fired from the left circle for a power-play goal off a pass from Spencer Smallman, who received the puck from Cristall. With 11:51 to go, Aaron Ness put Hershey back in front for the 5-4 final with his first goal of the season after he sent the puck around to Smallman along the boards, and Cristall picked it up before handing it over to Corey Schueneman, who passed it off to Ness for his 11th career game-winner with the Bears.
Notes:
- Mitch Gibson, 23-for-27; Drew Commesso, 18-for-23.
- Power play: HER - 2-for-5; RFD - 1-for-4.
- This was Bears head coach Derek King's first game against the IceHogs, where he served as an assistant coach from the 2016-17 season before the 2018-19 campaign, where he earned a promotion as the organization's head coach. He remained in that role until his promotion to the Chicago Blackhawks, the NHL affiliate for Rockford, in 2021-22.
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