(hersheybears.com) — Boyd Kane scored two of the Hershey Bears’ three power-play goals, Chris Bourque recorded three points and Dany Sabourin came up one shot shy of perfect in a 4-1 win over the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins on Friday night at Giant Center.
The Bears evened the teams’ best-of-five Eastern Conference quarterfinal at two games apiece, setting up a winner-take-all showdown on Saturday night in Wilkes-Barre (7 ET, AHL Live).
For the second consecutive night, the Bears jumped on top of the Penguins and it was rookie blueliner Cameron Schilling once again scoring first. While working their first power play of the night, Zach Miskovic took a Bourque pass and sent a shot on net from the half wall that was blocked away by Brad Thiessen. The puck deflected off of Schilling’s body as he was gliding toward the net and into the goal at 17:26 for a 1-0 Hershey lead.
The Bears earned their second power play when defenseman Joey Mormina was whistled for interference in the second period. At 7:52, Kane flagged down the rebound of Bourque’s shot from the left half wall in between the hash marks, and backhanded the puck in before Thiessen could recover to give the Bears a 2-0 advantage.
Jason Williams, who entered the game leading the Penguins’ offense with six helpers, scored his first goal of the playoffs when he tapped a perfect pass from Alex Grant behind Sabourin at 17:50, cutting the Bears’ lead to 2-1.
But Kane’s second of the night, which also was scored on the power play, came at 10:07 of the third when he positioned himself in front of a Ryan Potulny slap shot from the center point and tipped the puck behind Thiessen. Tomas Kundratek picked up his second assist of the night on the play. Bourque finished the scoring by hitting the empty net with 34 seconds remaining.
Sabourin evens his record at 2-2, while Thiessen falls to 2-2 in a 19-save performance. The Bears ended the night 3-for-4 on the power play and 9-for-9 on the penalty kill.
