SPRINGFIELD, Mass. - The Springfield Thunderbirds (2-5-0-0) ran into a special teams buzzsaw as the Hershey Bears (5-1-1-0) came away with a 6-2 victory on Saturday night at the MassMutual Center.

The T-Birds entered the night in an offensive funk, with only one goal to show for their prior six periods of work. However, on this night, Steve Konowalchuk's team quickly changed their fortunes, as just 2:28 into the first, Reece Newkirk arrived in the blue paint to jab at a loose puck following a Mitch Gibson save off of Greg Meireles. With the puck sitting just outside the crease area, Newkirk successfully jabbed it off the Hershey netminder and over the line, giving his club the 1-0 advantage on his first goal as a T-Bird. Meireles and Tanner Dickinson picked up the helpers as the T-Birds' fourth line opened the scoring.

4:13 later, the captain got into the goal-scoring act for a second straight night. After an Aleksanteri Kaskimaki point shot ricocheted off Hugh McGing, Matthew Peca picked up the loose puck, spun to his forehand, and elevated a perfect shot over Gibson's glove to extend the lead to 2-0. 

Penalty trouble got Springfield into a bind, though, as a double-minor to Leo Loof and a minor to McGing put Springfield down two men for two full minutes. With the 5-on-3, the defending champions took advantage, as Alex Limoges deflected a pass behind Vadim Zherenko from the top of the crease at 11:08, cutting the Springfield lead in half. After the penalties ended, Peca nearly got the T-Birds lead back up to two off a great setup by McGing, but Gibson slid post-to-post to stonewall the T-Birds captain.

The T-Birds' struggles with discipline carried into the second, and ex-Thunderbird Chase Priskie connected twice on power play goals less than three minutes apart to give Hershey a 3-2 lead at 4:30 of the second. 

That same score held into the third, but the Bears were not finished. New Hershey captain Aaron Ness fired a seeing-eye wrister that evaded Zherenko at 9:13 before Limoges added a second one at 10:16. Riley Sutter rounded out the scoring, intercepting the puck from Zherenko and tucking it home at 13:19. 

The T-Birds look to salvage the weekend on Sunday afternoon as they pay a visit to the XL Center in a 4:00 p.m. matchup against the Hartford Wolf Pack.

Interested 2024-25 season ticket members can call (413) 739-GOAL (4625) or visit www.SpringfieldThunderbirds.com to learn how to become a regular at the Thunderdome.