Pens tame Bears, 4-3, after penalties

HERSHEY, Pa. – The Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins came out on top in a shootout thriller against the Hershey Bears, 4-3, on Friday night at Giant Center.

Friday, January 23, 2026, the Hershey Bears vs WBS Penguins. The Penguins won in a shoot out by a score of 4-3.

Wilkes-Barre/Scranton (27-11-2-2) tied the game late in regulation, then ended up on top after a heart-pounding, five-minute overtime failed to produce a victor. Rutger McGroarty assisted on all three of his team’s goals, and Ville Koivunen scored both in regulation and in the shootout.

The Penguins were tagged with a tripping penalty 21 seconds into the game, and the Bears made them pay shortly thereafter. Ilya Protas cleaned up a rebound in the first minute of play, putting Hershey in a 1-0 lead.

Wilkes-Barre/Scranton evened the scales six minutes later by scoring off an offensive-zone faceoff. Gabe Klassen pried the puck backwards, and McGroarty tapped it towards the blue line. Phil Kemp then quickly dished to Owen Pickering, who unloaded the tying goal, 1-1.

Koivunen put the Penguins in a 2-1 lead with a pinpoint shot to the top corner at 14:39, right after McGroarty forced a turnover on the Bears’ breakout.

However, Hershey flipped their one-goal deficit into a one-goal edge with two tallies in the second period. First, Grant Cruickshank scored on a shorthanded breakaway 41 seconds into the frame. Then Andrew Cristall turned a bouncing puck into a go-ahead goal at 8:30 of the second stanza.

Wilkes-Barre/Scranton blitzed Hershey throughout the third period, but still trailed with two-and-a-half minutes left to play. With an extra attacker on the ice, McGroarty roped a pass from the right wall to the back post for a slam dunk finish by Avery Hayes. Hayes’ equalizer came with 2:17 remaining in regulation.

A back-and-forth, sudden-death period saw several golden opportunities fall by the wayside. Koivunen delivered the lone strike of the shootout for either team, while Sergei Murashov denied all three of Hershey’s attempts.

Murashov thwarted 27 shots in regulation and overtime. Bears goalie Clay Stevenson made 28 saves in 65 minutes of work, but stopped one of the two Penguins’ bids during the shootout.

Wilkes-Barre/Scranton’s next game is tomorrow, Saturday, Jan. 24, when the team returns home to take on the Charlotte Checkers. Puck drop for the Penguins and Checkers is set for 6:05 p.m. at Mohegan Arena at Casey Plaza.

With Pens match report