A first-round bye did not appear to slow the Hershey Bears (1-0), as the Chocolate and White began their run in the 2023 Calder Cup Playoffs with a 5-2 decision against the Charlotte Checkers (2-2) in Game 1 of the Atlantic Division Semifinals on Friday night at Bojangles’ Coliseum. Hershey leads the best-of-five series, 1-0.
Mike Vecchione opened the postseason scoring for Hershey at 14:12 of the first period when he redirected a shot from Mike Sgarbossa past Mack Guzda; Gabriel Carlsson collected a secondary assist.
Aliaksei Protas netted his first career tally in the Calder Cup Playoffs at 16:43 when he beat Guzda upstairs with a shot from the right circle; Hendrix Lapierre and Sam Anas assisted on the goal.
Lapierre then chased Guzda from the net at 2:06 of the second frame when his centering pass off the half-wall into the slot deflected off a Charlotte skater and past the Checkers netminder, giving Lapierre his first career postseason tally; Anas and Vincent Iorio assisted.
Connor McMichael pushed Hershey’s lead to 4-0 when he drove the lane and tapped a feed from Garrett Pilon behind backup goaltender Jean-Francois Berube at 4:03.
The Checkers finally beat Hunter Shepard at 5:42 with a power-play tally from Lucas Carlsson.
Charlotte extended its run with a goal at 8:52 of the third period when Santtu Kinnunen fired a shot from the right circle past Shepard’s blocker.
Sgarbossa iced the game for Hershey with an empty-net power-play goal at 19:54 from Ethen Frank and Iorio.
Shots finished 25-24 in favor of the Bears. Shepard went 22-for-24 in his Calder Cup Playoffs debut to earn his first postseason AHL win; Guzda was 4-for-7 in the loss for Charlotte, while Berube was 16-for-17 in relief. The Bears were 1-for-3 on the power play; the Checkers finished 1-for-4 with the man advantage.
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