A bear-y tough start as Admirals' lead slips away

NORFOLK

The team is just as advertised – fast, aggressive and loaded with offensive weapons.

Yep, those Hershey Bears are no joke.

The Norfolk Admirals? We’ll see. For now, though, all Friday night’s season opener proved was that, for all this group’s apparent potential, there’s still work to be done.

A three-goal Bears barrage over a 4:30 span of the second period wiped away a 2-1 deficit and powered Hershey past Norfolk 5-3 at Scope before 3,745, the smallest home-opening crowd in franchise history.

''Definitely not the way we wanted to start the season,’’ Admirals captain Zenon Konopka said. ''And it starts with me. I was terrible.’’

The Bears, who opened their season Wednesday in Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, have now scored 13 goals in two games while securing victories in two of the toughest buildings in the AHL’s Eastern Conference.

On paper, the Admirals appear capable of launching

similar fireworks. But Friday, they burned up much of their energy in often-futile efforts to clear their own zone, especially throughout the first two periods. The Bears outshot the Admirals 28-13 over the first 40 minutes.

''The 50-50 pucks, the 60-40 pucks, those are a big deal,’’ Konopka said. ''We lost a lot of those battles. That’s why we had trouble getting anything started.’’

The Admirals got away with it for a while. They managed just two shots on Bears goalie Daren Machesney over the opening 8:32 of the second period – one off Brandon Bochenski’s skate – but both found the back of the net.

Wyatt Smith’s power-play goal at 2:32 knotted the game at one. Exactly six minutes later, a Chris Lawrence centering pass caromed in off one of Bochenski’s blades to give the Admirals an unlikely lead.

Undaunted, the Bears kept up their assault and used tallies by Graham Mink – his fourth of the season – Andrew Gordon and Alexandre Giroux to regain command.

It could have been worse were it not for several dazzling saves by Admirals goalie Karri Ramo, most notably a sprawling denial of a Giroux breakaway early in the second period.

''He was our only highlight tonight,’’ Admirals center Wyatt Smith said of Ramo, who finished the game with 33 saves.

Desperation triggered a mild Admirals surge in the third period, and Paul Szczechura’s redirection of a Brandon Segal shot at 9:43 got Norfolk to within a goal.

But Hershey’s Chris Bourque’s empty netter with just over a minute left sealed Norfolk’s fate and left Admirals coach Darren Rumble wondering what happened to the team that promised so much in the preseason.

''I’m happy with our goaltender, and the Szczechura line was good,’’ the coach said. ''But we had too many guys that really weren’t going out there.

''I’m going to give them the benefit of the doubt and chalk it up to opening-night jitters. But we have to be better. We are better.’’

The Bears and Admirals meet again at 7:15 tonight at Scope.

Note: The previous smallest home-opening crowd came on Oct. 13, 2006, when 4,274 paid to see the Admirals knock off Springfield 6-3.

Paul White, 757-418-1447, paul.white@pilotonline.com