Hershey Bears eliminated from playoffs after dramatic 10-second sequence sees Andrew Cristall miss empty net and Penguins score game-winning shorthanded goal
The Hershey Bears saw their 2025-26 season come to an end on Thursday night. In Game 4 of the Atlantic Division Semifinals against the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins, the Bears fell behind 2-1 in the second period and never battled back from there, dropping a 4-1 decision on home ice to lose the best-of-five series in four games.
Wilkes-Barre/Scranton used some great fortune to net the ultimately game-deciding goal.
Andrew Cristall miss leads to Penguins’ game-winning goal
With 13:53 remaining in the second period and the Bears on a power play, rookie forward Andrew Cristall missed a wide-open net after playing a give-and-go with Ivan Miroshnichenko, watching his attempt clang hard off the far post.
The Penguins then took the puck the other direction, and defenseman Harrison Brunicke beat goaltender Clay Stevenson with a shot from a Gabe Klassen rebound.
“That’s just how it goes sometimes,” defenseman Louie Belpedio said. “Like a play like that where you think it’s for sure gonna be in and it’s not. I’ve been in that position before where it doesn’t fall your way. Yeah, it’s just super unfortunate. You think you’re scoring on one end, they go down, they score on the other. It’s just one bad thing after another.”
The dramatic 10-second swing turned out to be the dagger in Hershey’s season, and per head coach Derek King, it was an unfortunate summary of this campaign overall.
“Yeah, I think that’s how it’s been all year,” King said. “It seems like we’re on teams, we’re putting pressure on them, we miss, we hit a post, we shoot wide, they come back the other way and put a puck in the net. Good teams like they are, they can do that. They capitalize on their chances, and they’ve got some guys that can put the puck in the net. Our guys will get there. They’re going to be two, three years in the league, and all of a sudden they’re the guys that don’t give them the opportunity, or they’re going to score on that.”
To Cristall’s credit, the 21-year-old winger recorded an assist on Hershey’s lone goal in the loss and finished as the club’s top postseason scorer with seven points (2g, 5a) in six games. King spoke about how to pick up a young player after a heartbreaking miss like Cristall’s.
“Well, he comes back to the bench, he’s kind of got his head down a little bit,” King said. “But I’m just telling him, ‘Don’t worry about it, at least you’re getting the chances.’ The problem is with these guys; sometimes, they think they’ve got to score on every shot they take, and they’ve got to make a play, a highlight play, every time they get the puck. The fact that he’s getting the opportunities, our guys are getting opportunities, sometimes you run into a hot goalie. I told them after the game, ‘You guys had your chances. They just didn’t go in today. That’s all.’”
Hershey’s power play struggled in the second and third periods, misfiring on five opportunities to get the team back into the contest. Ilya Protas and Bogdan Trineyev, two big parts of the top special teams unit and the club’s first line, failed to record a point in a game for the first time this postseason.
The Penguins got another goal from Ville Koivunen early in the third period and an empty-net goal from Klassen to seal their victory. They’ll take on the Springfield Thunderbirds in the Atlantic Division Finals after the Thunderbirds upset the Providence Bruins in four games.
