Patrick Williams, TheAHL.com Features Writer
Todd Nelson liked the result.
The process? Well, that needs some work.
At this time of the year results are what counts, but Nelson and his Hershey Bears players recognize that they must be much better – even after they defeated the visiting Coachella Valley Firebirds 5-2 in Game 2 of the Calder Cup Finals last night.
The best-of-seven series is even at one game apiece.
The defending champion Bears now face three games this week at Acrisure Arena, where the Firebirds have gone 6-0 in this postseason and outscored the Bears 16-5 in four games during last year’s Finals. Game 3 is Tuesday night (10 ET/7 PT, AHLTV).
The Bears headed to Harrisburg International Airport immediately after Sunday’s game for a cross-country flight, landing in Palm Springs around 12:30 a.m. PDT. The Firebirds, who have been on the road for two weeks, flew back to California this morning to set up for Tuesday night.
“We got away with one,” Nelson said of Game 2. “Let’s call a spade a shovel here. They elevated their game, and we got worse – maybe because they elevated it. I’m happy with the win, but we have to be a lot better if we want to extend this series.”
Part of the Bears’ challenge these past two games has been managing the emotional transition and physical fallout from their seven-game struggle with Cleveland in the Eastern Conference Finals. That series only ended last Wednesday before the Bears had to jump into this Finals rematch with the well-rested Firebirds. Since the start of the conference finals, Hershey has played nine games in 18 days; the Firebirds had 11 days off between the end of the regular season and their division semifinal opener against Calgary, nine days off before their conference final against Milwaukee, and five days off before starting the Finals in Hershey.
The Bears have managed just 40 shots on goal through the first two games of the series. They went 12:37 without a shot in the second period of Game 2 before a heavy forecheck created a turnover behind the Coachella Valley net that turned into a Jimmy Huntington goal that broke a 1-1 tie. They went shotless for another 13 minutes in a stretch from late in the second period to nearly the third period’s midpoint.
Hershey is struggling with the Firebirds’ potent speed and transition game, something that forced the Bears into long stretches in which they struggled to move pucks out of danger spots. And when asked about the…
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