The Hershey Bears took to the ice at Giant Center on Monday ahead of Game 3 of their Atlantic Division Semifinals series against the Wilkes-Barre\/Scranton Penguins.<\/p>\n
While defenseman Ryan Chesley practiced fully and looked ready to return<\/a>, veteran forward Sonny Milano<\/a> did not participate in the skate and appears unlikely to be in the lineup on Tuesday night due to illness.<\/p>\n \u201cYeah, he\u2019s seeing a doctor today just with his illness,\u201d Bears head coach Derek King said after practice to the media, including RMNB. \u201cI\u2019m not 100 percent sure what it is. Doctors come in and talk to me, and I\u2019m not a doctor. Some of the language I hear, it\u2019s like, \u2018Okay, is he going to be ready or not?\u2019 So hopefully soon we\u2019ll know more.\u201d<\/p>\n Milano did not travel with the Bears to Wilkes-Barre for Games 1 or 2 of the best-of-five series, which the teams split at Mohegan Arena at Casey Plaza.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s no point in putting him in when you\u2019re not feeling good,\u201d King said to RMNB after Game 2. \u201cSome guys need to be feeling 100 percent before they can produce, right? So he\u2019s seeing the doctor, and we\u2019ll figure out what\u2019s going on with him.\u201d<\/p>\n Milano has not played since April 23, when he scored an empty-net goal in Game 2 of Hershey\u2019s first-round series against the Bridgeport Islanders.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n The 29-year-old winger has been with the Bears since February 26<\/a>, when the Washington Capitals<\/a> passed him through NHL waivers so the team could activate forward Connor McMichael<\/a> from injured reserve.<\/p>\n Milano was one of the Bears\u2019 best offensive players down the stretch, posting 13 points (5g, 8a) in 16 games and firing 36 shots on goal.<\/p>\n Milano\u2019s absence in the lineup has coincided with the official announcement that he signed with SC Bern of the Swiss National League for the 2026-27 season<\/a>.<\/p>\n Veteran AHL players heading overseas can sometimes reach agreements before their North American seasons end, as European leagues begin play in early September. One recent example would be former Bears center Mike Sgarbossa. Reporting\u00a0on his signing with HC Lugano of the National League\u00a0surfaced on May 8,<\/a>\u00a0during Hershey\u2019s Calder Cup Playoffs appearance in 2025. Sgarbossa would go on to appear in three playoff games with the Bears after his agreement hit the internet.<\/p>\n Milano is in the final season of a three-year contract he signed with the Capitals in 2023, which pays him an annual average salary of $1.9 million. Milano spent the majority of the 2025-26 regular season with the Caps, recording eight points (4g, 4a) in 31 games.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Hershey Bears took to the ice at Giant Center on Monday ahead of Game 3 of their…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":624901,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,99],"class_list":["post-624900","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/624900","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=624900"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/624900\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/624901"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=624900"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=624900"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=624900"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}