The Norfolk Admirals have Hershey's number.

The Bears entered Wednesday night's game against the Admirals with 16 more points in the standings and six more wins.

Hershey had won four of its last five games while Norfolk had lost three of five.

But the positives didn't matter for Hershey and the negatives didn't affect Norfolk.

The Bears blew a two-goal, first-period lead and then watched as Norfolk re-took the lead twice after the Bears had tied the game in the third period.

Hershey's Tomas Fleischmann scored to knot the game at 4-4 with 2:49 to play in the third period. But just 28 seconds later, Mark Cullen whacked a rebound past Hershey goalie Frederic Cassivi to give the Ads a 5-4 victory at the Giant Center.

The win gives Norfolk five wins in its last six games against Hershey.

"We made no commitment to pay the price to win,'' said a steamed Hershey coach Bruce Boudreau. "I'm disappointed. We could meet them in the playoffs and they won't have any respect for us for the success they've had.''

Ire also flowed out of Norfolk coach Mike Haviland's mouth as he addressed the Admirals after the first period. Norfolk had played a bad game against Binghamton last Saturday and came out flat Wednesday.

"He was pretty upset,'' said Cullen, talking about Haviland.

The Admirals responded to Haviland's diatribe and scored three unanswered second-period goals.

"We were standing around waiting for the other guy to do something instead of doing things ourselves,'' Haviland said.

The Bears appeared to regain some momentum early in the third period when Jakub Klepis one-timed a shot past Norfolk goalie Corey Crawford to tie the game at 3-3.

But just under four minutes later, the Bears couldn't clear the traffic in front of Cassivi and Cullen struck for his first goal of the game to give the Ads a 4-3 lead.

Hershey re-tied the game when Fleischmann skated across the deep slot and fired a shot low to Crawford's stick side. Coming so late in the period, the game appeared headed to overtime.

But Cullen, again allowed too much time to stand in front of Cassivi, scored by jamming the puck past the Hershey goalie.

"They (Norfolk) didn't have too much life at the start of the game,'' said Hershey forward Boyd Gordon. "We let them creep back in. We better get it straightened out because we have have two big games (vs. Wilkes-Barre and Bridgeport) this weekend.''

Klepis' brilliant inside-out move on Norfolk defenseman Steve Munn put the Hershey forward in position to beat Crawford with a backhander for a 1-0 Hershey lead. Later in the first, Boyd Kane passed the puck off the boards to himself before centering a pass to Gordon, whose re-direction gave the Bears a 2-0 lead.

But Norfolk's Nathan Barrett closed Hershey's lead to one at 2-1 and Pavel Vorobiev's tied the game and put the Admirals ahead 3-2 with consecutive second-period goals.

"The win says a lot about our character,'' Cullen said. "When Hershey tied it, it could have been deflating. But we responded.''

That's something the Bears, according to Boudreau, didn't do.

Notes: The last of Hershey's 10 games against the Admirals will be played April 8 in Norfolk. ... Hershey, six points behind Wilkes-Barre/Scranton in the East Division, missed a chance to gain ground when the Phantoms topped the Penguins, 3-2. ... Forwards Louis Robitaille and Joey Tenute, who have played for Hershey most of the season, made their NHL debuts Tuesday for Washington against Florida. ... Hershey's win over the Phantoms last Saturday made it 30 wins in 51 games. That marks the team's third fastest run to 30 victories in team history, eclipsed only by the 1987-88 club that won 30 of its first 50 contests and the 1945-46 team that won 30 of its first 49 games. blog comments powered by Disqus