After 3 weeks of eagerly anticipating the Hershey Bears' return home, it was a deep disappointment indeed to see the Bears go down twice to the Manitoba Moose over the weekend. With the Bears' road victory over the Phantoms on Friday night, I had expected that the Bears would come out swinging Saturday - and they did, but not in any kind of productive way. Clearly there were some leftover frustrations from the Bears' visit to Winnipeg, as the number of spats and fighting penalties was fairly high.
The team's play did improve markedly from Saturday night (lost 5-0) to Sunday (lost 3-1), perhaps in part due to the presence of Dean Arsene yesterday. However, the loss of Josef Boumedienne to injury and Sami Lepisto to the Caps is really palpable, as the team seems to lack spark and leadership at the D position right now.
Some other observations:
* Robitaille's fight with Manitoba's Brown at the beginning of Sunday's game was a great strategic move. I'm normally not a fight person, but taking out a player who scored 2 goals for the Moose on Saturday could only help the Bears.
* The passing was abysmal on Saturday, perhaps due to the fact that so many players are out due to injury and have been replaced by call-ups and trades. This was somewhat improved yesterday but still needs work.
* Overall the Bears seem to lack assertiveness when it comes to going after the puck. There were too many times in both games when a player seemed to watch the puck going by and only belatedly move to secure it.
With only 13 games left in the regular season, every game is critical now. Let's Go Bears!
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