The Checkers found themselves in a tough hole as Hershey went ahead 3-0 less than five minutes into the second period. The visitors didn’t roll over, however, as Roland McKeown put Charlotte on the board shortly after with a backdoor tap-in of a Lucas Wallmark dish. That would inject some life into the Checkers, who used a Trevor Carrick power-play bomb and a Lucas Wallmark snipe from the slot to draw even with three tallies over a seven-minute span.
That wouldn’t be the end of the scoring in the second, though. Hershey cashed in on another power play to go back on top in the waning minutes of the middle frame, but Julien Gauthier answered seconds later by pounding home a loose puck out front.
With Alex Nedeljkovic replacing starter Jeremy Smith at the beginning of the frame, things settled down in the third. Aleksi Saarela broke the deadlock midway through, but the Bears notched their third power-play tally of the game late in regulation to force overtime.
The Checkers would survive a penalty kill in the extra frame but couldn’t put an end to the contest, even with a man advantage of their own, and the game proceeded to a shootout. Valentin Zykov found the back of the net in Charlotte’s first attempt, but he would be the sole Checker to convert. After Travis Boyd scored in the top of the fifth round, Bears netminder Vitek Vanecek turned aside Janne Kuokkanen’s attempt to seal the victory for Hershey.
