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Hershey Bears hit the road tonight against Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins
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This past week has been event less as far as Hershey Bears hockey goes. With only one game, last Saturday's victory over Norfolk, it doesn't even feel like the season has started. But tonight all that changes. Not only do the Bears get back to game action but they play 3 games in 3 days beginning tonight in Wilkes-Barre.
The Bears head up I-81 to face off against the Pittsburgh Penguins AHL affiliate, the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins. This is the first of 12 matchups against the Baby Pens this season.
Generally games between the Pens and Bears contain loads of excitement and animosity. The teams routinely face off in the playoffs, including last year when the Bears defeated the Pens in a full 7 game series in the East Division Finals. But this year might get started a little differently.
While the Bears roster remains remarkably intact considering the high turnover typically associated with minor league rosters, the Penguins roster is entirely different. Of the 37 players that appeared in at least 1 game for the Baby Pens last season only 11 remain. And many of those were just role players last season.
The top 5 scorers from the Pens last season, Janne Pesonen, Jeff Taffe, Mark Letestu, Chris Minard, and Connor James, are all playing elsewhere this season. And that is just the top 5 scorers, it gets worse. 14 of the top 20 point producers from last years team are gone. Even in a minor league sport that is a lot of roster turnover from one year to another.
The Pens brought in some other players to try and replace the scoring, including Wyatt Smith, Chris Conner, and Konstantin Pushkarev. They also appear set to give some rookies some valuable time to help.
Any way you look at it those of you hoping to see a typical Bears/Pens game might need to wait until they have played a few more games against each other.
Tomorrow night the Bears venture even further north to face off against the Binghamton Senators in a game that could feature the two best teams in the division as the Sens have made significant moves to get better. After that the Bears return home to play the Manchester Monarchs on Sunday.
Expect to see 3 different lineups this weekend and potentially 3 different goaltenders as head coach Mark French looks to see who works best where.
