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Bears slay Monsters in shootout
Goalie Dany Sabourin turned aside four of five Lake Erie Monsters shooters in the shootout and stopped 35 shots through 65 minutes of play to help the Hershey Bears skate to a 3-2 victory Tuesday night in Cleveland.
In the shootout, Ryan Potulny struck for the Bears in the second round, Markus Lauridsen tied it up in the third round, and Jeff Taffe put the Bears ahead for good in the fourth. Sabourin made a pad stop on Brad Malone in the final round to preserve the win.
Lake Erie took a 1-0 lead just 42 seconds into the game on a goal by Paul Casey. After killing off a Lake Erie two-man advantage, the Bears got the equalizer. Unable to control a bouncing puck in the neutral zone, the Monsters coughed up the puck to allow Mike Carman and Matt Pope to take off on a two-on-one rush. Carman held the puck and fired a shot under the glove of Lake Erie goaltender Calvin Pickard at 9:19.
The Bears then earned their second power play of the night, and made it count to take a 2-1 lead. Off of a cross-zone pass from Peter LeBlanc, Casey Wellman took a shot from in close that Pickard kicked to the side. Barry Almeida was waiting untouched at the top of the crease, and put the rebound into a virtually empty net at 15:27 for his fifth goal of the season. LeBlanc's assist was his first point with Hershey.
Not long after failing on their second five-on-three chance of the game, the Monsters tied the game early in the second period. Center Gary Steffes pulled a clean faceoff back to the center point, where Thomas Pock one-timed a shot past the glove of Sabourin at 2:14.
Lake Erie outshot Hershey 6-3 in a scoreless overtime. Hershey's penalty kill was perfect on seven Monsters chances.
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