ORLANDO, FL – It must have felt like forever when the Orlando Solar Bears returned to the friendly confines of the Amway Center Wednesday night after a ten game, three week road trip. They wanted so badly to give their fans a win over the Norfolk Admirals to start a three game set before the Christmas break but on this night, the visitors played the part of the Grinch and spoiled the party.
Orlando forward Darryl Bootland celebrates one of his two goals in Wednesday night’s game (Photo courtesy of Fernando Medina / Orlando Solar Bears)
Behind two goals by rookie Grant Besse, Norfolk (9-17-1-0, 19 points) pulled off a come-from-behind 5-3 victory over the host Solar Bears (11-13-4-0, 26 points) in front of an announced weeknight crowd of 4,010. The loss was the fourth in the last five games for Orlando. It also spoiled the home debuts of Alex Gudbranson, Sean Zimmerman and Darryl Bootland, who scored two goals in his inaugural spin on Amway Center ice.
“I was disappointed. I didn’t think we put out the effort that we could [have],” Solar Bears head coach Drake Berehowsky said after the contest. “We got up [in the game] but we have to learn how to finish teams off.”
The anticipation of seeing Bootland and Zimmerman on home ice for the first time had the crowd abuzz, to the point of some wearing fake beards in honor of Bootland’s iconic facial hair. It only set the scene for an early Orlando power play and a score by the man the fans were waiting to see.
With Norfolk’s Alex Pompeo in the box, Solar Bear forward J.J. Piccinich darted down the wing to the left of Admirals goalie Ty Reichenbach. Piccinich curled down below the goal line and saw Bootland steaming down the slot with no one defending him. Piccinich made a perfect tape-to-tape pass and Bootland slammed his shot home for his second goal of the season just 2:44 into the contest.
“With Pic [Piccinich], the first goal it was all him. With his speed, I keep telling him just go to the outside and I’ll be behind you.Go to the outside and I’ll give it right back to you” Bootland said. “I give all the credit to J.J. He’s a great hockey player and he’s awesome to play with. He made a great pass. I’m not going to beat too many goalies anymore with a nice fancy shot so just low and as hard as I can and it worked out.”
Orlando goalie Cal Heeter (30, right) looks for the puck around Norfolk’s Kenton Helgesen and Solar Bears defenseman Nolan Valleau (Photo courtesy of Fernando Medina /Orlando Solar Bears)
As excited as the fans were to see Zimmerman and Bootland, they were just as pleased to see Solar Bears goalie Cal Heeter, who has been pretty hot of late. Heeter, who had 42 saves last Saturday in Norfolk, was on his game again. He was perfect on all 13 Admirals shots in the opening frame as Orlando took a 1-0 lead into the first intermission.
Heeter started the second as he played the first, knocking back a couple of Norfolk shots – including one that knocked his mask off – to keep it a one goal game. It bought his teammates a little bit of time and they rewarded their netminder with an insurance tally. Josh Winquist, who has picked up some of the slack left when Jean Dupuy and Martins Dzierkals were called  up to the Toronto Marlies, wowed the crowd with an amazing dangle move to give himself some space and got Reichenbach to bite on a fake, leaving a wide open net for his ninth of the season.
“I kind of ended up on a two-on-one. I wanted to pass to Joe Perry but the seas just parted and I took it to the net,” Winquist said. “It ended up being an open net for me.”
Norfolk began its comeback by getting on the board thanks to a power play. At the 9:10 mark of the second, Besse got the puck to Patrick D’Amico who skated into the faceoff circle to Heeter’s right. Zimmerman slid over to try to block D’Amico’s path but the Admirals forward chose to shoot and the puck deflected off Zimmerman’s stick and flipped up and over Heeter’s shoulder for D’Amico’s fifth of the year.
Just over three minutes later, a newcomer made a huge impact in his first ECHL game for the Admirals. Defenseman Michael Young took control of the puck at the point and found a lane to fire it at the net. Mitch Vandergunst, who was just called up from the SPHL on Tuesday, was in the right place to redirect it into the back of the net for his first ECHL goal and point in his first league game. The tally evened the score at two where it stayed through the buzzer ending the middle stanza.
Playing with more confidence, Norfolk continued to push and utilized a delayed penalty situation to take the lead. With a penalty coming to the Solar Bears and Reichenbach off for an extra attacker, defenseman Don Olivieri fired a shot with traffic in front of Heeter. The Orlando goalie never saw the puck until it was in the net behind him, giving Olivieri his second of the season and a 3-2 lead.
Orlando’s Kyle Rankin (19, white) tries to make a play in Wednesday night’s game (Photo courtesy of Fernando Medina / Orlando Solar Bears)
The Admirals pushed their margin to two at the 10:32 mark when Besse, one of the leading rookie scorers in the ECHL, netted his first of the night. It came on what looked to be a harmless even up rush during a penalty kill. As the Orlando defense backed in, Besse took advantage by skating to the hashmarks in the slot and whipping a wrist shot just over Heeter’s left leg pad for his 11th of the season.
Down by two with time winding down, Berehowsky pulled Heeter with three minutes left in regulation. The strategy paid off when at the 17:42 mark, a shot by Winquist took a carom off of Bootland’s body and beat Reichenbach (36 saves) for his second of the night and third of the season. It was as close as the Solar Bears would get as Besse closed things out with an empty net goal with 1:08 remaining to seal the win.
Asked why the Admirals have been a tough team to play against, Winquist said it all comes down to the mindset of the Solar Bears team.
“we’ve just got to show up at the rink with a great mindset. I think we’re a good hockey team and we show it in spurts,” Winquist said. “I think we should beat every team in this league but we’re not playing up to our level and we’re playing down to other teams’ levels I think we need to show a full sixty [minutes] and grind and work hard and we’ll come out with two points.”
As for Bootland, even though the team lost, he admitted that the first time in front of the Amway Center crowd was a special one.
“I’ve known the DeVos family [owner of the Solar Bears] and Van Andel Arena and Grand Rapids since I was there for six years and got to know the family really well,” Bootland, who played his 900th professional game during the road trip, said. “To sign with them [in Orlando] and try to come down here and perform again for them is a great feeling.”
Notes: Norfolk outshot Orlando in the game 44-39… Each team scored once on the power play as the Solar Bears went 1-for-4 while the Admirals were 1-for-3… Heeter finished the game with 39 saves… Winquist has five points (3 goals, 2 assists) in his last two games… Nolan Valleau (4 games), Max Novak (3 games) and Kristian Pospisil (2 games) all extended their point streaks… The Solar Bears were without defenseman Sam Jardine, who was called uop by the Toronto Marlies Tuesday night… The two teams will meet again Thursday night at 7 p.m. at the Amway Center.
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