Rylan Schwartz (13, center) picked up his eleventh goal Saturday night (photo courtesy of F. Medina & G. Bassing / Orlando Solar Bears)
ORLANDO, FLA – Saturday night at the Amway Center, it felt like all the pieces were in place for the Orlando Solar Bears to come away with a win: large crowd, an appearance by Superfan Cameron Hughes, a local TV audience and incentive from a bad loss on Friday. It was even International Polar Bear Day – a sure sign from the hockey gods that everything was aligned.
Too bad someone forgot to invite Lady Luck to the party.
Led by two points from Eric Kattelus, 39 saves from Joel Martin and a couple of lucky bounces, the Kalamazoo Wings (24-24-4-1, 53 points) doubled up the Solar Bears (23-22-2-5, 53 points) by a 4-2 final. The win allowed the Wings to tie Orlando for eleventh place in the ECHL’s Eastern conference standings.
Eric Faille scored his 21st goal of the season and added an assist while Rylan Schwartz picked up his 11th tally to lead the Solar Bears. Orlando outshot Kalamazoo 41-30 in the game but could not overcome allowing the Wings two goals in the first period or the bounces not going its way.
“It was one of those games where if we’re at the top of the standings, i think it’s one of those ones that you probably not (don’t) live with but you say hey we ran into a hot goaltender or we didn’t finish tonight [and] we’ll get them next game,” Solar Bears head coach Anthony Noreen said. “I thought we carried the play. I thought we had the better of the chances. A couple of bad break goals [went] against us. That’s hockey.”
The announced crowd of 8,799 – the second largest of the season – and thousands more watching at home expected Noreen to make good on his promise that the Solar Bears would “reset” after Friday’s poor effort. Orlando made good on that promise on the defensive end, holding the Wings to just eight shots in the opening frame on goalie Ryan Massa.
The first problem that the Solar Bears ran into was self-inflicted. Orlando took a pair of penalties in a span of four minutes midway through the first and Kalamzoo capitalized on both.
With captain Eric Baier in the box, the Wings opened the scoring at the 11:43 mark. Kattelus made the key play, a pass that sprang Lane Scheidl on a break. Scheidl finished it off with a shot between Massa’s legs for his seventh goal of the season.
Soon after, another call put Adam Reid in the penalty box and this time it took Kalamazoo just six seconds to score. Tyler Shattock attempted to cross a pass to Kattelus on the far side of the crease. The puck never got to Kattelus, bouncing off a defender’s skate into the back of the net for Shattock’s tenth.
Orlando’s luck continued to fail it early in the second when Faille appeared to have put the Solar Bears on the board. Referee Stephen Reneai immediately waived it off, saying that Faille had kicked the puck in.
With Martin sailing along, it looked like the two opening period scores would be more than enough. The shutout lasted into the closing minutes of the middle frame when Orlando’s power play finally produced a score.
Brenden Miller started the sequence by dropping a pass down to Patrick Watling. Watling then made a pass across the slot to Faille who hammered a shot past Martin.
The Solar Bears suffered yet another bad break early in the third. The Wings sent the puck into the Orlando defensive end with Curtis Valk in hot pursuit. When Massa (26 saves) went to play the puck away, it hit a defenseman and caromed into the back of the net. Valk was credited with his tenth goal on the play.
It took the Solar Bears almost six minutes to find an answer to Valk’s score. Schwartz did the bulk of the work on the play, taking a feed from Faille and driving toward the net. Martin got a piece of the initial shot but it trickled through the netminder, rolling teasingly toward the goal line. Schwartz circled the net and was able to beat a defender to the puck, poking it in to cut the Wings’ lead to 3-2.
“The puck was up high at the blueline and the two defensemen and Faille did a good job keeping it in. I had a lot of open ice and took it to the net,” Schwartz said. “Luckily it squeaked in behind him (Martin) and I wrapped around the other side and tapped it in.”
Orlando continued to press for the equalizer, putting lots of pressure on the Kalamazoo defense. Martin held the fort until Kattelus sealed the victory by cashing in the rebound of a shot by David Gilbert that was stopped by Massa.
Despite the loss, Noreen was pleased with his team’s higher level of consistent play – a point that has been an issue on more than a few occasions during the season.
“From a process standpoint, it was one of our stronger games of the season. I thought the puck possession was ours. The better looks were ours. I thought our power play was good – it had some really good looks,” Noreen said. “I just think we need to put the puck in the net. From a consistency standpoint, if we follow it up and we’re good again on Monday [against Kalamazoo] and we get a win then we follow when we go into [Manchester and] Brampton and do the same thing, then it’s starting to go in the right direction.”
Contact the author at Don.money@prohockeynews.com
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