Iorio lifts Bears over Bruins in OT

Vincent Iorio scored his second career overtime-winning goal to lift the Hershey Bears (20-6-0-0) to a 3-2 win over the Providence Bruins (13-8-2-2) on Wednesday night at GIANT Center.

The victory enabled the Bears to match the franchise record for the fastest 20 wins to start the season (originally established by the team in 2008-09 with a record of 20-5-0-1).

BOX SCORE

Ivan Miroshnichenko scored 59 seconds into the contest on Hershey’s first shot of the game, when he received a cross-ice pass from Ethen Frank in the neutral zone and made his way up the middle before snapping the puck over the glove of Brandon Bussi for his seventh of the season.

Joey Abate tied the game for Providence late in the second after the Bruins won a face-off in the offensive zone and Frederic Brunet’s shot from the point deflected on net by Abate; the forward stuffed the rebound past Hunter Shepard at 17:12.

The Bruins then took a 2-1 lead with a power-play goal at 18:58, as John Farinacci stole the puck behind the Hershey net and fed it in front of the cage for Georgii Merkulov to put past Shepard.

Pierrick Dube leveled the score for Hershey at 6:38 of the third period with a power-play goal. As Mike Sgarbossa and Logan Day passed the puck back-and-forth above the right circle, Dube settled into the slot before receiving a pass from Sgarbossa and putting his 13th of the season past Bussi to make it 2-2 and force overtime.

The Bears claimed the game late in the extra frame when a backchecking Ethen Frank managed to recover the puck from a Providence skater in the Hershey zone and move it along to Sgarbossa, who curled back inside the defensive zone and set a pass up the right side into neutral ice for Iorio, who broke in with Frank on a 2-on-1, before snapping the puck past Bussi at 3:48 to end the match with his third goal of the season.

Shots finished 26-23 in favor of Hershey. Shepard stopped 24-of-26 shots to earn his 10th victory of the season; Bussi took the overtime loss for Providence with a 20-for-23 effort. Hershey went 1-for-3 on the power play; the Bruins went 1-for-5 with the man advantage.

With Hershey match report