Bears Lose 4-1 to Checkers to Wrap Up Regular Season | 4/20/2024

Bears lineup against the Checkers:

Limoges – Vecchione – Frank

Snively – Huntington – Dube

Roe – Rybinski – Trineyev

Hofer – Sutter – Strome

Ness – Day

Haman Aktell – Priskie

Massie – Osipov

Shepard

Stevenson

   Mackie Samoskevich got things started for Charlotte with a smooth two-on-one play with Rasmus Asplund at 15:18 of the first period. Just less than a minute later, Will Lockwood added to the Checkers’ lead to make it 2-0 after he had been quickly fed by Justin Sourdif, hammering it home. Through the opening 20 minutes, the Bears were outshot 16-7. In the middle frame, the score remained the same as Hershey continued to stay behind.

   In the third, the score stayed at 2-0 for most of the remainder of the game thanks to Hunter Shepard to keep Hershey in it. Later into the final frame, Joe Snively scored to at least avoid a shutout with 1:19 on the clock on a slapshot from the point. Both Logan Day and Alex Limoges had the assists. However, Charlotte struck two more times to wrap it up for a 4-1 final… Alexander True and Zac Dalpe both scored with very little time left to secure a victory.

Notes:

– Going into this game, the Bears entered with a 12-2-0-1 record in their last 15 games.

– Aaron Ness skated in his 800th pro game.

– This season marks the first regular season in franchise history where the Bears had never lost back-to-back games in regulation.

– The Bears are the first in the AHL with a penalty kill that’s gone 234-for-267 (87.6%)

– This season, six individual players combined 10 shorthanded goals, which is tied with the 2021-2022 team for the highest by a Bears team since the 2011-2012 team had buried 13 shorthanded goals.

– Hershey has a league-leading 40 wins when scoring first… Against the Atlantic Division opponents this season, the Bears are 38-10-0-3.

– The Bears have the lowest average penalty minutes in the Eastern Conference per game… 9.37 penalty minutes per game.

– (Before this game) Joe Snively had a six-game point streak (nine points; two goals, seven assists), tying for 15th in the league scoring with a total of 58 points (13 goals, 45 assists), and his assists are tied for fifth.

– The Charlotte Checkers won three of their last five with the Bears and ended the season series with a head-to-head 3-5-0-0 record.

– Charlotte has also not lost more than two straight games since January.

– Mackie Samoskevich extended his point streak to six games (nine points; four goals, five assists).

– In his last five starts, Spencer Knight has allowed one or fewer goals.