Bears one win away from Calder Cup Finals

On Monday night the Hershey Bears were down 2-0 to the Rochester Americans entering the third period. They roared back, no pun intended, with four unanswered goals en route to a 4-2 win to put themselves up 3-1 in the Eastern Conference Finals heading back to Giant Center tonight.

Mason Morelli led the charge with a three point night. They are now one win away from their first Calder Cup Finals appearance since 2016 and their 24th appearance overall.

The Bears also improved to 5-0 on the road in this year’s postseason and was the third time in the playoff run that the Bears rallied from a third period deficit to win including the second from down 2-0.

Rochester’s first goal came at 3:01 of the first period with a rebound from Linus Weissbach past Hunter Shepard. The Amerks went up 2-0 with another goal from Weissbach this time at 16:01 of the second period.

The Bears had outshot the Americans 14-7 in the second period but couldn’t get anything past Malcom Subban. But they finally got that goal and then more in the third period.

Lucas Johansen scored his second of the playoffs at 10:06 with assists coming from Aliaksei Protas and Sam Anas which started the comeback.

Just over two minutes later Connor McMichael continued his hot spring with a nice assist finding a wide open Logan Day for his third of the playoffs at 12:11 to tie the game. Morelli had the secondary assist.

Morelli broke the tie at 15:27 with a rebound from a shot from Day for his fourth of the playoffs. Garrett Pilon added a secondary assist. Morelli finished it with an empty net goal at 19:03 from Protas.

The Bears had the edge in shots 36-22 overall. Shepard made 20 saves. Both teams couldn’t score on the power play as Hershey went 0 for 3 while Rochester went 0 for 2. ]

Game 5 is tonight at 7 p.m. and if you can’t make the drive up to Chocolatetown you can catch the game on NBC Sports Washington.