On Frozen Blog

Last spring the Hershey Bears and the Portland Pirates met in the AHL’s Eastern Conference Finals, with Eric Fehr deciding the series in breathtakingly dramatic fashion in overtime of game 7. I remember Bear’s radio guy John Walton’s frenzied and exasperated call of the score. I also remember the Anaheim (then Mighty) Ducks shipping high-profile reinforcements Dustin Penner, Ryan Getzlaf, and Corey Perry cross-country to Pennsylvania, the day after the Ducks had been eliminated from the playoffs, just in time for Game 7. They didn’t even make the Game 7 morning skate. It didn’t matter. But that series — and especially the manner in which it concluded — gave birth to a budding, non-divisional rivalry. Saturday night’s near sellout crowd of just under 7,000 at the Cumberland County Civic Center suggested as much. The vocal contingent of traveling Bears’ fans was in fine numbers and form again, though this time seated down low.
A surprise Saturday night starter in net for Hershey: Jeff Pietrasiak, making just his third start for the Bears on the season. I’m a bit disappointed for my friends Mike, Marleen, and Chris because I was eager for them to see the progress Maxime Daigneault has made this season. But I know better than to second-guess Coach Boudreau and his 30-games-above-.500 decisionmaking on the season, and upon reflection, he had to use two goalies this weekend with a slate of three road games in the span of less than 45 hours beginning Friday night.
Louis Robitaille’s Saturday night was microwave brief in uniform: 35 or so seconds on the ice and about two minutes of game time before he was sent to the showers for splattering Eric Weinrich into the end-boards. He would end up getting a match penalty and a game suspension for it, for viciously hitting from behind, but more immediately the Bears were tasked with killing off a 5-minute penalty. They did so rather well, with Dave Steckel outscoring the Pirates 1-0 on it, gorgeously finishing a two-on-one break with Alexandre Giroux.
Steckel’s had a breakout season for the Bears. His 24 goals, with still more than 15 regular season games left, equal his goal output in his first two AHL seasons. He’s played for Bruce Boudreau all three of his pro seasons, and the coach believes he’s terrifically close to making it full time in the NHL.
“I think he’s as close to being an NHLer as any other prospect going,” Boudreau told me. “He’s smart defensively. He’s never going to be an offensive guru at that level, but he certainly knows how to play the game.
“I mean he’s an intelligent player — there’s a reason why LA drafted him in the first round. He could always get a little stronger, but his skating has picked up a tremendous amount.”
The best endorsement I heard from Boudreau about Steckel was how he delineated his top center’s production. “There’s not too many guys at the American League level that don’t play the power play, that usually play other teams’ best centers, and have 23 goals. He’s gonna score 25, at least. Give him a lot of credit. His play in penalty killing and at even strength is a big reason why we’re winning.”

Like last night in Manchester, tonight Steckel has scored a statement goal in the first period. But my friends Mike and Marleen and Chris are also wide-eyed at the play of Chris Bourque. He was the game’s first star in Manchester, and tonight Marleen — long a CBourque skeptic — is falling in love with his determination, mobility, and forechecking. He’s everywhere on the ice, a constant pest, and making plays. And this is what the Bears’ coaching staff has been stressing with him.

“People forget that [Chris] would be a junior in college right now,” Boudreau said. “To me it’s always been important how Chris plays without the puck, and he’s getting a lot better at that right now. He still has a tendency to be a little too cute and try things that he got away with at prep school and can’t get away with now, but that’s gonna come around.”
Back in the autumn, Boudreau told the media that he thought Bourque was a three-year project, and I asked him Saturday if he was sticking to that forecast.
“I still think that, [and] I think there’s a chance he’ll get games next year [with the Caps], maybe even this year.
“There’s some guys you can forecast are one-year guys — Mike Green was a one-year guy, Jeff Schultz was one year — and then there’s guys . . . I mean Klepis, he’s turned it around so much right now. He’s night-and-day a better player.
“I wouldn’t have said [Klepis] was gonna be a player, but right now, the way he works out there, absolutely.”
The Bears’ work ethic and chemistry and especially their gumption and guile at keeping the puck in the offensive zone during their man advantages necessarily forces sour comparisons with the futile parent club in my four seats of Bears’ supporters. Marleen and Mike are convinced that the Bears could beat the Caps right now. They’re season ticket holders, so I sympathize with their frustration. But truly the Bears do look like world-beaters this weekend, and it’s fun as hell having traveled as far as the four of us have and witnessing special hockey by guys you hope are eventually part of solving Washington’s weighty woes.
The Pirates, conversely, have been hit hard by graduations to the parent club this season — most notably, the big three of Penner, Getzlaf, and Perry — and while tonight’s game remains tight throughout, remaining deadlocked at 2-2 with 10 minutes to play, the Bears are clearly stronger, pressuring Pirates blueliners into blunders in their own end with seemingly every shift. For the second straight night, I’m awestruck by the cohesion the many stranger Bears demonstrate. At Saturday morning’s skate, I told Boudreau that in Manchester these newcomers and their new teammates looked as if they’s skated together on intact lines for months.
“I’d like to say it’s the coaching staff,” he told me, laughing. “I don’t know . . . I use two words all the time in the dressing room — ‘will’ and ‘want’. You’ve got to have the will to do it (succeed), and you’ve got to want to learn.
“We’ve had two or three practices together with this unit, and they’ve practiced well and they want to be good together.
“Chemistry . . . Matt Reid, Joey Tenute, and Chris Bourque have never even practiced together, and I mean, they go out [last night in Manchester] and score four goals together. Go figure.”
I had heard a Bear that morning guarantee a victory tonight, and when, with about eight minutes left in the third period, Kyle Wilson scored what would be the game winner, I realized that that bravado was part of what Boudreau meant by his players’ wanting it as badly as they do.
These friends of mine with me in New England this weekend are the same ones who traveled with me to Hershey late last spring to savor a spectacular postseason title run. We’ve already discussed the certainty of repeat postseason trips this spring. But none of us prior to this weekend had thought in terms of seeing hockey again really late in the warm weather, with another Calder Cup perhaps in the balance. Up close with the team and its coach this weekend and witnessing championship-caliber camaraderie and cohesion, I’m going to have to report to them over our Maine tavern victory beers the exciting news.