On the bright side, it took this long, 19 games, for this team to lose by more than one. (Some years, that took, like, 19 minutes.) It took this long to have a game where a team did enough to draw five more power plays than the Sound Tigers had.
Bright sides aren’t that bright on a night like this, though. Fact is, they handed the Bears a couple of those power plays. Taking a guy down to prevent a breakaway: OK. Cross-checking a guy in the head: less so. The guys who are killing penalties (and that group grew, no doubt by necessity, as the game went on) wear down.
Of Hershey’s 19 first-period shots, 13 came on 6:16 of power-play time. Through two periods, the Bears had 17 of their 29 shots on 10:31 of power-play time. The Bears’ big line took 18 shots themselves, 10 of them Giroux’s, and most of them on the power play.
And meanwhile, the Sound Tigers weren’t generating a lot of the chances they normally do. (Blake Comeau had some comments about it. See paper.)
The Bears kept coming. The Bears kept getting power plays. The Bears are dangerous. The Bears went ahead.
The Bears are back in first place.