Bears Take Down Penguins, 4-1

Bolstered by a season-high 37 shots on goal, the Hershey Bears (25-6-0-0) returned from their holiday break by picking up their sixth straight win with a 4-1 victory over the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins (15-11-3-0) on Wednesday night in front of a sellout crowd of 10,505 at GIANT Center.

Hershey improved to 5-2-0-0 in its regular-season series with Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, and 3-0-0-0 on home ice against the Penguins this season.

In addition to their 25 wins so far, the Bears’ 50 points in the standings is also the most by the club through its first 31 games of any season in its 86-year history of play in the AHL.

BOX SCORE

Alex Limoges gave Hershey a 1-0 lead late in the first period when he picked off Rem Pitlick’s pass in the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton zone and lofted a shot above the glove of Magnus Hellberg at 17:39 for an unassisted goal, and his ninth tally of the season.

Ethen Frank pushed the Chocolate and White up 2-0 at 12:18 of the second frame when he drove to the net and redirected Joe Snively’s centering feed past Hellberg for his 14th of the season. Mike Sgarbossa contributed a secondary assist.

Minutes later Corey Andonovski checked Limoges from behind along the glass at 13:05, prompting Pierrick Dube to respond and scrap with Andonovski. A slashing penalty to the Penguins’ Colin White at 13:30 then resulted in a 4-on-3 man advantage for Hershey.

Snively converted on the power play when he snapped his eighth of the season past Hellberg at 13:51 to extend the lead to 3-0. Sgarbossa and Mike Vecchione assisted on the goal.

The Penguins got on the board at 11:48 of the third period when Austin Rueschhoff one-timed a shot from the slot past Hunter Shepard to spoil the goaltender’s bid for his second shutout of the season.

Dube added an empty-net goal from Limoges and Jimmy Huntington at 15:56 to cap the scoring, giving the forward his league-leading 17th goal of the season.

Shots finished 37-21 in favor of the Bears. Shepard went 20-for-21 to earn his fifth consecutive victory and 14th victory of the season, tied for first in the AHL; Hellberg took the loss for Wilkes-Barre/Scranton with a 33-for-26 effort. Hershey went 1-for-2 on the power play; the Penguins went 0-for-2 with the man advantage.

With Bears match report