The Falcons lost in s shootout for the second time in their last three games.
Springfield Falcons goalie Curtis McElhinney makes a save against the Hershey Bears during the first period of Friday night's AHL game at the MassMutual Center.
SPRINGFIELD – Why wait until Saturday night?
The Springfield Falcons and Hershey Bears decided to turn back the clock Friday night.
The game could not be decided in regulation or overtime and it took a shootout goal by Stanislav Galiev to end the game and send the Hershey Bears to a 3-2 American Hockey League victory over the Falcons.
This was a game reminiscent of the classic battles between Springfield and Hershey teams of the late 1990s. The names may have changed, but the caliber of hockey was right up there with those teams with exciting end to end action.
There were former Falcons playing for the Bears, not to mention a couple of Springfield kids, cousins Barry Almeida and TJ Syner.
And what would a Springfield/Hershey game be without some controversy from the referee.The crowd of 3,489 expressed displeasure at referee Geno Binda twice during the second period.
Late in the period, Cam Atkinson was clearly hauled down from behind on a breakaway. Not only did Binda fail to call a penalty shot, he did not assess any infraction.
His judgment also came into question during the waning seconds of the period. Jonathan Audy-Marchessault was clobbered by a Hershey player while fighting for the puck in front of the net. He was called for roughing and when he argued with Binda he was slapped with an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty, giving the Bears a four-minute power play that carried over to the third period.
The Falcons killed off that lengthy power play. They've had plenty of practice on the penalty kill lately.
During their last three games, the Falcons have given the opposition 20 power plays, including six to the Bears.
Cam Atkinson and Audy-Marchessault did not appear during the third period, overtime or during the shootout. Both were benched by coach Brad Larsen.
"Bad penalties,'' Larsen said. "We've been talking a lot about it and we can't have one of our best players( Audy-Marchessault ) taking six minutes and Cam taking a penalty when we were on a power play. These guys are tremendous competitors, but we cannot afford to take so many penalties. It might have cost us a point, but at some point, we've got to hold guys accountable for their actions.''
After yielding a shootout goal to former Falcon Jeff Taffe, Curtis McElhinney stopped the next five Hershey shooters until Galiev connected. Matt Calvert put the Falcons first shootout bid past Braden Hotby, but the Hershey goalie stopped the next six Springfield bids.
"The bright side is we took the point,'' Andrew Joudrey said.
David Savard had the best chance to decide the game in overtime, but Hotby denied his bid from the left faceoff circle.
"I'm so proud of the way our guys responded – they played their butts off,'' Larsen said.
Almeida set up Hershey's second goal. He fired a shot from the slot that was stopped by McElhinney. Matt Pope collected the rebound and fired the puck into a wide open net to tie the score at 2-2 at 7:15 of the second period..
McElhinney robbed Pope with a sliding save moments before the Falcons took a 2-1 lead at 4:14 of the second period.
Ryan Johansen set up the goal with a swift pass to Auby-Marchessault. "JAM'' as he is affectionately called by his teammates, motored past a Bears' defenseman and beat Hotby with a wrist shot.
The Falcons got careless on defense and paid for it. Former Falcon Boyd Kane tied the score at 1-1 midway through the first period.
A Falcon defender fell when Garrett Mitchell sent a pass from behind the net to a wide open Kane, who buried the puck past McElhinney.
The Falcons opened the scoring at 8:51 when Michael Chaput scored his first professional goal. After Hotby stopped a shot by Sean Collins, the puck was loose in the slot, where it was picked up by Chaput.
Chaput powered a low shot through a crowd that Hotby never saw and the Falcons had a 1-0 lead.
FALCON FABLES: Falcons owner Charlie Pompea attended the game as did ex-Springfield Kings media relations director Jim Slattery ... Washington Capitals coach and former Boston Bruins player, Adam Oates, is the co-coach of the Bears with Mark French during the NHL lockout ... Ex-Falcon Ryan Potulny was not in the Hershey lineup. . The Falcons are idle Saturday. They play the Connecticut Whale Sunday at 7 in Hartford ... Paul Dainton missed the game due to injury and Mike Clemente was called up to back up McElhinney. That prevented the first meeting between two former University of Massachusetts hockey captains at the MassMutual Center.