At about 9:30 p.m. Wednesday, Doug Yingst wore an ear-to-ear smile.
Who could blame the Hershey Bears president and general manager?
He'd just witnessed two of his off-season acquisitions put together five-point games to lead the Bears to an impressive 8-4 thrashing of the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins in Hershey's season-opener at the Wachovia Arena.
Graham Mink, back for a second stint with the Bears after two seasons with the Worcester Sharks, produced a hat trick and added two assists. Linemate Keith Aucoin, another of Yingst's veteran pickups, also recorded five points with four assists and a goal.
Topping the billing for the Bears was their power play, which netted five goals in seven chances. Mink scored all three of his goals on the man-advantage, teaming with Aucoin and Alexander Giroux to form a potent power play line.
"When you have talent like that, it comes naturally," Hershey coach Bob Woods said. "There's not a lot of structure to it. They are good players and they are going to take what's given to them. There seems to be an instant chemistry among those guys."
Mink took five shots in the game, scoring on three. Even he was surprised at how fast Aucoin, Giroux and he gelled.
"It's beyond what I expected," Mink said. "Hopefully, it translates into more wins and we can continue it over the course of the season."
Another key to this get-off-on-the-right-foot night was Aucoin's goal just 1:36 into the game. The goal seemed to quiet the Wachovia Arena crowd after the pre-game opening-night festivities.
"We never looked back after that, just kept going," Aucoin said. "That was a big start for us."
Aucoin's goal came on Hershey's first shot of the game. In fact, the Bears were efficient, scoring twice on three shots and three times on eight shots.
Hershey took a 4-1 lead at the end of the first period and some were wondering whether or not last week's preseason 8-2 win over the Penguins was more of a forecast than preseason games usually are.
The Penguins cut Hershey's lead to 4-2 on Ryan Stone's second goal of the game. In what might be termed a pivotal portion of the game, if, indeed, an 8-4 game has a pivotal point, the Bears managed to kill off two back-to-back Wilkes-Barre power plays late in the second period, preventing the Pens from further cutting Hershey's lead.
What made it pivotal was that if there was some part of the Bears' game to pick on, it would be the penalty kill, which looked shaky at times and gave up two goals on six Penguins chances in the first two periods.
On the heels of those impact kills came Giroux's power play goal to give Hershey a 5-2 lead.
"We killed them off when we needed to," Woods said. "We changed things up a bit and there was a little confusion. We'll work out those kinks. Guys are still getting used to each other."
Connor James' goal early in the third period narrowed Hershey's advantage to 5-3, then Mink completed his hat trick, finishing a tic-tac-toe passing sequence with, you guessed it, Aucoin and Giroux.
When Andrew Gordon beat relief goalie Adam Berkhoel, who replaced starter David Brown after the first period, less than two minutes later, Hershey's lead was 7-3 and that was that.
Notes: Hershey scratched seven players but Woods said the club is hesitant to reassign players to the East Coast League with affiliate South Carolina playing in Alaska … G Simeon Varlamov served as Hershey starter Daren Machesney's backup. G Michal Neuvirth remains on the Bears' roster. … Hershey plays the Admirals Friday and Saturday in Norfolk. They will complete their early-season four-game road swing in Philadelphia Oct. 17 before playing Syracuse in the home-opener Oct. 18.
E-mail: kfreeman@lnpnews.com