ORLANDO, FLA – For most of the first 55 minutes of play on Sunday, the Wheeling Nailers had the Orlando Solar Bears playing from behind. In fact, the Nailers had the Solar Bears down by two at that juncture and seemingly had the outcome in control. However, the home team had a comeback in them – a comeback that gave Orlando momentum heading into overtime.
Unfortunately for the Solar Bears, they could not finish the job.
Justin Almeida’s second goal and third point of the day 2:22 into the extra on a power play allowed the Nailers (17-14-1-0) to steal a 4-3 victory over Orlando (18-13-2-0) in front of an announced crowd of 4,335 at the Amway Center. The win allowed Wheeling to take two of the three games in the weekend series, repeating the outcome of the last time Pittsburgh Penguins’ ECHL affiliate visited the City Beautiful in February of 2018.
Solar Bears forward Tristin Langan earned his team a point in the standings, scoring twice in the final five minutes of regulation to secure a trip to overtime. Dylan Fitze netted the other goal for Orlando while Odeen Tufto picked up two assists, giving him six points (1 goal, 5 assists) in his first three career ECHL games over the weekend.
Given the point that whenever two ECHL teams get together for three or more straight games can produce fireworks by the final contest, Sunday had its share. The first period eatured a fight between Orlando’s Chad Duchesne and Wheeling’s Cam Hausinger along with assorted roughing calls and a couple of slashing infractions.
One particular hit, thrown by the Nailers’ Felix Pare actually played a big part in the game’s first score. As his penalty for boarding expired, Pare came out of the box into center ice. Back in his own defensive end, Alameida gotcontrol oft he puck and flipped it out. The puck bounced over the stick of a Solar Bears defender right to Pare who quickly sped in on Orlando goalie Brad Barone. Pare initially fanned on a shot but had the presence to spin around to regain control, pull the puck to his forehand and elevate it just over the left leg of Barone for his sixth goal of the season and a 1-0 lead with 14 seconds left in the frame.
Less than a minute into the second period, Wheeling’s Josh Victor was nabbed for elbowing, sending Orlando to its second power play of the game. Just as Victor was stepping back onto the ice, the Solar Bears cashed in to even the score. The sequence began with a shot from out high from Hunter Fejes that Nailers netminder Stefanos Lekkas kicked away. The rebound rocketed to the faceoff circle to Lekkas’ right where Orlando forward Alexey Lipanov, who was activated off the injured reserve list earlier in the day, grabbed and sent it netward. Again Lekkas thwarted the try but the puck fell into the crease where Fitze banged it across the line for his fifth tally of the year at the 2:22 mark.
Just after the midpoint of the period and game, the Nailers took their second lead of the contest. Alameida and Chriz Ortiz entered the Orlando end on an even-man rush. Ortiz cut into the top of the circle to Barone’s left and dropped a pass to Alameida. Alameida had enough room to get to the hashmarks and rifle a drive to the top corner on Barone’s stick side for his team-leading 13th goal. It was the lone score of the middle frame and sent the visitors to the second intermission up 2-1.
Shortly after killing off a penalty called at the end of the previous period, the Nailers extended their lead. Ortiz did the honors, skating through the circle to Barone’s left and making a sharp cut into space between two Solar Bears. As he cut across the goal face, Ortiz fired to the short side where it went off Barone’s catching arm and trickled into the cage for his seventh of the campaign.
Down by two, Orlando went desperately in search of a goal to cut into the deficit. Overlapping Wheeling penalties to Nick Mangone and Jared Cockrell gave the Solar Bears a full minute of five-on-three power play but they failed to take advantage, recording no shots on Lekkas. The two-man advantage was truncated when Solar Bears defenseman Michael Brodzinski had to trip the Nailers’ Josh Maniscalo to foil an attempted break-in.
With 5:17 left in regulation, the Solar Bears were handed their seventh power play of the afternoon when Wheeling’s Tyler Drevitch went to the penalty box for roughing. Some nifty perimeter between Luke McInnis and Tufto led to Langan standing on the goal line to Lekkas’ left. Langan edged his way a stride or two above the line, giving him an angle to roof a short side shot over Lekkas’ left shoulder and in for his third of the season to cut the margin to 3-2.
Just under two minutes later, the Solar Bears were on the hunt again thanks to a delayed penalty on Wheeling. With Barone on the bench for an extra attacker due to the coming penalty, Tutfo worked the puck back to Langan who was just inside the blue line. There was traffic in front of the net when Langan fired and the screen allowed the shot to beat Lekkas for Langan’s second of the game and fourth of the season as well as knotting the score at 3-3.
Neither team scored in the final 1:23 of regulation, sending the contest to overtime. Barely two minutes had passed when Orlando’s Lipanov was called for tripping, giving the Nailers a chance to end the game with a power play tally. They did just that when on the four-on-three advantage, Alameida and Ortiz ran a little give and go that ended with Alameida beating Barone, who was screened by Ortiz,cleanlt for his second of the day and 14th goal.
Barone made 22 saves on 26 Wheeling shots in losing his first post-regulation game of the season. On the other end, Lekkas picked up his second straight win against his former teammates, stopping 37 of the 40 Orlando shots he faced.
Both teams will be off until next weekend for the All-Star break as the league hits its halfway point with the game being played Monday night in Jacksonville. Orlando will return to the ice on Friday to start a three game set against the Maine Mariners up in Portland, Maine.
Notes: Both teams finished the game 1-for-7 on the power play. In the Saturday and Sunday games, the teams combined for 27 man advantage opportunities with Wheeling hitting on two of their 13 chances while Orlando was successful on two of its 14 tries… Orlando’s Fitze finished the weekend with four goals including his hat trick on Friday night.
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