Big 2nd Period Lifts Binghamton Senators Past Hershey Bears

The Binghamton Senators scored three unanswered goals in the second period to help guide them to a come from behind 5-3 win past the Hershey Bears. Carter Camper, Cole Schneider and Derek Grant each scored a goal and an assist while Shane Prince had three helper’s of his own in his first game back from  re-call, as the win snaps the Bears 13 game point streak as well as their six straight road wins on DIFD night.

GAME RECAP

On the first shot of the game for Hershey, Casey Wellman scores his 17th of the season taking a lead pass down the middle from Philippe Cornet and chips it in stick-side of Scott Greenham to give the Bears an early 1-0 lead. At 1:22 later, Bears make it a 2-0 game with Tim Kennedy‘s drop pass in front finds defenseman Tomas Kundratek as his wrist shot goes top corner into the back of the net.

Former Senator Dustin Gazley snaps one off the crossbar as Hershey is out-skating the Senators and taking advantage of their defensive struggles. Bears end the period on their second power play of the night which will carry over into the second as shots end up 19-13 Hershey.

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Senators do a good job in killing off the rest of the penalty and at 17:10 Schneider takes a quick Camper pass and drives towards the net switching from his forehand to backhand and roofs the puck past Philipp Grubauer to slice the lead in half. Senators much better looking and have momentum midway through the period.

Grubauer stones Garrett Thompson’s one-timer at his doorstep with Max McCormick setting him up from behind the net. Binghamton soon after evens up the score with Camper playing pitch and catch with Schneider parked by the side of the cage, and shovels the puck behind Grubauer from in front as Senators are pressing keeping the Bears back on their heels.

On an ensuing power play for Binghamton, Alex Grant unloads from the blue line and his shot gets tipped in through Grubauer to give the Sens their first lead of the evening, 3-2. Then the Bears’ Liam O’Brien barrels into Greenham knocking them both inside the net and tries to keep the goalie out of play as ref’s let play go without a stoppage. Darren Kramer is there and picks up the rookie forward and those two exchange punches with O’Brien getting the take-down.

Back and forth action in the third until Alex Guptill scores with a quick snap shot after Ryan Dzingel wrestles the puck loose from Kris Newbury from behind the cage and dishes out front for Guptill’s fifth of the season. Hershey cuts the lead back to one with 3:35 left by Wellman’s soft wrister from the point is deflected in by Cornet setting up a screen in Greenham’s wheelhouse. With Grubauer pulled with 1:04 left, Colin Greening lands an empty netter with 25.3 seconds left securing the Binghamton victory.

NOTES & OBSERVATIONS

• Third annual D.I.F.D. night in Binghamton as they take their turn in promoting awareness for youth mental health.
• Game was #1000 in the team’s 13th season being the Ottawa Senators’ prime affiliates.
• Hershey’s Cameron Schilling high-sticks Chris Wideman in the corner and Brad Mills is angry going after him in engaging a brief fight in the second period. One thing this team does is sticks up for one another, that’s for sure, good to see.
• Hershey had 19 shots in the first but only 10 the rest of the game. Binghamton finishes with 33.
• Great performance by Camper as that line was fun to watch, contributing 7 points while earning the game’s 1st star. Prince as well, with him skating hard and continued to play where he left off before his call-up.
• Guptill an honorable mention with his goal and game high 6 shots with this one of his better ones to date.
• Greenham a little shaky in the first but settled down afterwards as the defense tightened up around him with the 3rd and 4th lines helping out on the forechecking.
• 4 wins in their last 5 games as Senators are finding ways to do it and not give up in squandering early first period leads to the opposition as evident tonight.

B-SENS LINES

Forwards – Prince-Camper-Schneider, Greening-D Grant-Mills, Guptill-Dzingel-Robinson, Kramer-McCormick-Thompson

Defense – Claesson-A Grant, Johnson-Mullen, Lepine-Wideman

Out – Mike Sdao and David Dziurzynski, injured. Danny New,  healthy.

UP NEXT

Binghamton and Syracuse meet up for another rival tilt on Friday up north for the battle of I-81.

*Cover Pic & Insert Courtesy of SenShot’s Photographer Alicia Strauch