Haven’t been around for a month or so but of course I wasn’t going to miss seeing Bourque’s number retirement in person. Was a solid retirement ceremony for a well deserving Hershey legend. It will probably be over 20+ years until we see another number retired because guys don’t stick around for almost a decade like Bourque did in his two stints with the team.
That being said, it was a great game and the prospects (and future prospect Ethen Frank) led the way. First and foremost, the Todd Nelson hire was huge for this team. Guy has done a great job with the group. They have a lot of talent, but he has had plenty of big injuries and major roster juggling to battle through and he has this team top of the league. He’s not afraid to push buttons but he truly gets the most out of the guys. I was impressed to see pretty much all players playing hard at both ends of the ice. The defensive game of a lot of the forward prospects has taken huge strides.
McMichael stood out the most tonight. His line (Snively-McMichael-Borgstrom) dominated and out worked Springfield on most shifts. He worked his tail off at both ends of the ice and he got into the dirty areas quite a bit tonight. His snipe in the 2nd period was an absolute beauty. He’s already up to 8 goals on the year. Also played decent minutes on the penalty kill and power play.
Snively didn’t miss a beat and looked like he has played with McMichael and Borgstrom all year. Had a couple of beautiful stick lifts while back checking. I really appreciate Borgstrom’s game. He’s not flashy but he’s really solid and he busts his ass every shift. A great complementary piece to that line.
Frank will get a contact next year. He’s been on a tear all year long. Springfield honed into him quite a bit tonight. They were all over him after he scored two Friday evening, but he still had a solid tip in during the third period. He has another gear when skating that allows him to blow past guys.
Lappy didn’t stand out as much tonight as he did last time I saw him, but I attribute that to his line. They didn’t seem to have the chemistry that others had. He had Protas and Pilon on his wings tonight. He did a solid job anchoring the 2nd PP unit and ended up getting into the dirty areas for a PP goal in the first period. You can see that Protas is a lot stronger than last year. Was using his body very well along the boards.
Rybinski centered the 4th line. I wasn’t too impressed with him at center. He did well penalty killing but it wasn’t his best game overall. He lost a ton of puck battles. He needs to add weight to his frame in the offseason.
First PP unit was Protas, Snively, McMichael, Sgarbossa and Frank.
Second PP unit was Lapierre, Morelli, Borgstrom, Nardella and Pilon.
I still think the biggest concern moving forward is overall toughness. They are a pretty small team outside of Protas and McIlrath. Adding some grit would be beneficial, especially for a long playoff run.
