April 25 Recap

Hershey's season ended on a sour note last night, as they gave up four third period goals en route to a 7-3 shellacking in Wilkes Barre. The Bears actually scored the first goal of the game and had a 2-1 lead at one point, and were down 3-2 after two periods before the Baby Pens exploded for a four goal third to put the game out of question. After winning the Calder Cup two years ago and losing in the finals last year, a first round exit is a bit of a disappointment for the guys in Chocolate and White, but oh well, you can't make it that far every year. Just making the playoffs is a respectable season.

One of the bad things about the AHL is that there are a lot of roster changes from one year to the next as guys either move up to the NHL or switch teams because of either being involved in a trade or signed as a free agent to a minor league contract by another NHL club. My guess is Chris Bourque, Alexandre Giroux, and probably Sami Lepisto will be in Washington instead of Hershey next year, although Giroux and Lepisto could go elsewhere. Hopefully Hershey doesn't lose too many key players, or they are able to make good offseason signings.

In the NHL, the Penguins erased a 3-0 deficit early in the second period by scoring four unanswered goals, including the first two in a 14 second span, to open their series against the Rangers with a 5-4 win. Per usual, Sidney Crosby created controversy amongst the opposition, who claims that he took a dive to embellish the penalty that lead to the game winning goal. I think Sid does draw some BS penalties, but in this case, I'm not complaning as I want the Penguins to win the series.

Dallas beat San Jose 3-2 in OT to take a 1-0 lead in that series. Look for OT to be a constant theme there...if not OT, definitely tight, one goal games. I didn't watch the end of this game because of being exhausted from getting up at 5:30 to go to Penn Relays for the day, but the first two periods weren't terrible...not a lot of shots, since both teams are strong on D, but there wasn't a lack of opportunites or action.