After a season of bouncing back and forth, Justin Nachbaur hopes his next stop is a year-long one.

Alt: a man wearing a jersey that says ' wear ' on it is sitting in a stadium

ALT: a man is screaming with his hands on his head and says `` for the love of god come on already !!! ''

<p>The defending back-to-back Calder Cup champion Hershey Bears played some inspired hockey on Tuesday night against the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins after one of their worst losses of the season over the weekend irked head coach <strong>Todd Nelson</strong>.</p> <p>The Bears <a href="https://x.com/TonyAndrock/status/1889007426893979781">recalled four players from the ECHL’s South Carolina Stingrays</a> ahead of puck drop, including Capitals prospects <strong>Alexander Suzdalev</strong> and <strong>Ryan Hofer</strong>. And when the game started, the Bears’ lineup featured eight regulars out due to illness, injury, or personal reasons — a list that included the team’s second and third-best goal-scorers last season, <strong>Pierrick Dubé</strong> and <strong>Alex Limoges</strong>.</p> <ul> <li>Jake Massie (lower body)</li> <li>Alex Limoges (lower body)</li> <li>Pierrick Dubé (lower body)</li> <li>Mike Sgarbossa (illness)</li> <li>Henrik Rybinski (upper body)</li> <li>Bogdan Trineyev (illness)</li> <li>Jon McDonald (illness)</li> <li>Brad Hunt (personal)</li> </ul> <p><strong>Matt Strome</strong>, <strong>Brennan Saulnier</strong>, and <strong>Hudson Thornton</strong> were the healthy-scratches.</p> <p>“We made quite a few changes since the last game,” Nelson <a href="https://www.hersheybears.com/news/bears-hold-on-for-5-4-win-over-penguins/">said per the Bears</a>. “I know some guys are sick but this was the lineup we were going to go with anyways. And they came out and played a really good game. The guys we inserted played outstanding.”</p> <p>One of the call-ups from the Stingrays, defenseman <strong>Andrew Perrott</strong>, <a href="https://www.hersheybears.com/news/bears-sign-andrew-perrott-to-ahl-deal-and-loan-him-to-stingrays">was signed to an AHL contract for the rest of the season on February 7</a>.</p> <p>Days later, the 5-foot-10 rearguard opened the scoring for the Bears, scoring the team’s first goal in 10 days. Off a clean <strong>Garrett Roe</strong> faceoff win, Perrott unleashed a huge slapshot that clanged off the post and in 4:40 into the first period.</p> <div class="twitter-wrapper"> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-media-max-width="780"> <a href="https://twitter.com/TheHersheyBears/status/1889469425058763110?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"></a> </blockquote> </div> <p>Shortly after the Penguins’ <strong>Emil Bemstrom</strong> tied it up 1-1 and <strong>Hendrix Lapierre</strong> and <strong>Ethan Bear</strong> gave Hershey back a 3-1 lead, the two teams had a huge showdown that could be a moment Hershey looks back on that turned around their up-and-down season.</p> <p>A near-line brawl was sparked by Penguins forward <strong>Vasily Ponomarev</strong> brutally boarding Bears forward <strong>Dalton Smith</strong> with 4:09 remaining in the period. The illegal hit caused four different players to be ejected and four fighting majors to be doled out.</p> <div class="twitter-wrapper"> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-media-max-width="780"> <a href="https://twitter.com/HBHNationBlog/status/1889475006196752683?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"></a> </blockquote> </div> <p>The major aggressors in the dust-up were Hershey’s Smith, <strong>Justin Nachbaur</strong>, and <strong>Aaron Ness</strong>. On the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton side, Ponomarev was ejected for his hit, while <strong>Nikolai Knyzhov</strong>, <strong>Ville Koivunen</strong>, and <strong>Dan Renouf</strong> got involved in the after-whistle rough stuff.</p> <div class="twitter-wrapper"> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-media-max-width="780"> <a href="https://twitter.com/TheHersheyBears/status/1889517298332893393?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"></a> </blockquote> </div> <p>Smith, Nachbaur, and Knyzhov were all ejected for getting into “secondary altercations.” Nachbaur’s fight with Knyzhov was his second in as many games for the Bears since recently being <a href="https://www.hersheybears.com/news/bears-recall-justin-nachbaur-from-south-carolina/">recalled by the club from the ECHL’s South Carolina Stingrays</a>.</p> <p>After the dust settled and the two clubs headed into their locker rooms for the first intermission, 89 penalty minutes had been assessed by the on-ice officials.</p> <figure aria-describedby="caption-attachment-528069" class="wp-caption alignnone" id="attachment_528069" style="width: 1570px"><img alt="Hershey Bears and Wilkes-Barre/Penguins penalty minutes in the first period" class="size-full wp-image-528069" data-recalc-dims="1" decoding="async" height="1084" sizes="(max-width: 1342px) 100vw, 1342px" src="https://i0.wp.com/russianmachineneverbreaks.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/hershey-bears-021225-pims.jpg?resize=1342%2C1084&amp;ssl=1" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/russianmachineneverbreaks.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/hershey-bears-021225-pims.jpg?w=1570&amp;ssl=1 1570w, https://i0.wp.com/russianmachineneverbreaks.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/hershey-bears-021225-pims.jpg?resize=768%2C620&amp;ssl=1 768w, https://i0.wp.com/russianmachineneverbreaks.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/hershey-bears-021225-pims.jpg?resize=1536%2C1241&amp;ssl=1 1536w, https://i0.wp.com/russianmachineneverbreaks.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/hershey-bears-021225-pims.jpg?resize=1200%2C969&amp;ssl=1 1200w, https://i0.wp.com/russianmachineneverbreaks.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/hershey-bears-021225-pims.jpg?resize=600%2C485&amp;ssl=1 600w" width="1342"/><figcaption class="wp-caption-text" id="caption-attachment-528069">Screenshot: <a href="https://theahl.com/stats/game-center/1027184">AHL</a></figcaption></figure> <p>An additional 10 PIMs would be added in the latter two periods, leaving the game one minute short of an even 100 penalty minutes.</p> <p>Hershey ended up 5-4 victors, surviving a furious late-game comeback by the Penguins. WBS appeared to tie with 2 seconds remaining, but the goal was wiped out because the puck appeared to be redirected by a Penguins’ high stick on its way into the net.</p> <div class="twitter-wrapper"> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-media-max-width="780"> <a href="https://twitter.com/HBHNationBlog/status/1889506974045216980?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"></a> </blockquote> </div> <p>In the win, the Bears also got tallies from <strong>Mike Vecchione</strong> and <strong>Spencer Smallman</strong>. <strong>Hunter Shepard</strong> made 25 stops to earn his 18th win of the season. Lapierre had two points (1g, 1a).</p> <p>“Play like men, come out, and work hard, outwork your opponent, win puck battles,” Nelson said. “We played a really strong game and I thought we deserved it. They’re a good hockey team over there. You can’t let up on them, but the game was probably closer than it should have been.”</p> <p>Nelson also praised all five recent players called up from the Stingrays who were inserted into different spots of the lineup.</p> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-dnt="true" data-width="550"> <p dir="ltr" lang="en">Warmups underway – Catch tonight's broadcast coverage:</p> <p>🖥️ AHLTV on <a href="https://twitter.com/FloHockey?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@FloHockey</a>: <a href="https://t.co/PN33pvVp4L">https://t.co/PN33pvVp4L</a><br/>📻 <a href="https://twitter.com/FroggyValley?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@FroggyValley</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/foxsports1460am?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@foxsports1460am</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/WOYK1350?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@WOYK1350</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/CapitalsRadio?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@CapitalsRadio</a> </p> <p>Tonight's projected lineup: <a href="https://t.co/7qtn45bYiM">pic.twitter.com/7qtn45bYiM</a></p> <p>— Hershey Bears (@TheHersheyBears) <a href="https://twitter.com/TheHersheyBears/status/1889456923742745060?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 11, 2025</a></p></blockquote> <p><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script></p> <p>“Suzdalev was great, Hofer was outstanding, Nachbaur and Smith, they did their job. Perrot, excellent,” Nelson said.</p> <p>The hard-fought victory came after a 5-0 shutout loss on February 8 to the Syracuse Crunch, where Hershey suited up only 17 skaters due to a flu bug going around the team. The game was the team’s first after returning from last week’s AHL All-Star break.</p> <p>“Well, I definitely didn’t expect that,” Nelson <a href="https://www.hersheybears.com/news/bears-drop-5-0-decision-to-crunch-in-return/">said after the loss on Saturday per the Bears</a>. “The guys had four days off, we had two really good practices, I felt good about the game tonight, a lot of energy, and we were dead from [the beginning] – just no life, it was truly an embarrassing effort.</p> <p>“It’s unacceptable and it’s happened now twice in the last couple weeks. I’m not going to use an excuse, the flu bug going around or we played short tonight – I don’t care. The bottom line is that the guys that we count upon to go out there and do a job to provide offense for us were not even in the building tonight. They didn’t even show up – our best player was [Justin] Nachbaur tonight – he got called up from South Carolina, played like he cared, and nobody else did. I was looking for guys to throw on the ice in the third period, and nobody wanted to be on there. It’s embarrassing. That’s pretty much it in a nutshell.”</p> <p>The rough loss also came less than two weeks after a shocking 9-0 defeat to the Penguins on January 29 — the team’s worst defeat since 1993 when they fell 11-0 to the Cornwall Aces.</p> <p>The Bears have not been the same this year after having one of the most dominant seasons in AHL history in 2023-24. The team has seen two of their staples, captain <strong>Dylan McIlrath</strong> and <strong>Ethen Frank</strong>, graduate full-time to the Washington Capitals. Hershey cut ties with Calder Cup champion defensemen <a href="https://russianmachineneverbreaks.com/2024/12/15/logan-day-mutual-release-hershey-bears-khl-traktor-chelyabinsk/"><strong>Logan Day</strong></a> and <strong><a href="https://russianmachineneverbreaks.com/2025/01/31/capitals-hardy-haman-aktell-unconditional-nhl-waivers-mutual-contract-termination/">Hardy Häman Aktell</a></strong>. They <a href="https://russianmachineneverbreaks.com/2024/11/29/hershey-bears-trade-dmitry-osipov-utica-comets/">also traded <strong>Dmitry Osipov</strong></a> in late November. While the Bears are tied with the Laval Rocket for the most points in the Eastern Conference with 63, they’ve struggled to play with consistency.</p> <p>“All I’m looking for is for 20 guys to go out there, work hard, and do their job,” Nelson <a href="https://x.com/zackfisch/status/1889412089657143299">told Hershey’s Zack Fisch before Tuesday’s game</a>.</p> <p>He got his wish.</p>