FORT WAYNE, IN – When a team gets onto a winning streak, the main question that gets asked is how long will the run last before it ends. An equally asked question is how bad will the loss that ends the streak be.
Sunday evening, the Orlando Solar Bears answered both questions it was not pretty.
Led by a hat trick and five points from Mike Cazzola, the Fort Wayne Komets (15-7-3-0, 33 points) dominated the Solar Bears (16-8-3-0, 35 points) 7-1 in front of a pre-holiday crowd of 5,722 at the Allen County War Memorial Coliseum. Jamie Schaafsma contributed four assists and four other Komets scored goals in the rout.
The loss was just the third regulation failure on Orlando’s first of two ten-game road trips this season. The Solar Bears head back south with a 5-3-1-0 record with just a game in Estero against the Florida Everblades before they return to the Amway Center on Thursday.
Orlando head coach Drake Berehowsky expected Sunday’s contest to be a good test of where his team is. He had to be pleased when rookie Tony Cameranesi banged the rebound of a Denver Manderson shot past Komets goalie Garrett Bartus for his twelfth goal of the season 4:32 into the first period.
The rest of the period was an evenly played battle as Bartus and Solar Bears netminder Ryan Massa went save-for-save throughout most of the frame. Orlando outshot Fort Wayne 12-10 in the period and appeared to be on solid ice heading to the second.
The middle frame started to get chippy almost from the outset as a series of matching penalties to both teams interrupted the flow of the game.
The Komets, who were playing their third game in three days just as the Solar Bears were, used the choppy play to get their footing and began to take control of the contest. They started piling up shots on Massa who was doing everything he could to keep his team in front.
The dam broke at the 9:27 mark when Cazzola somehow found the puck in the middle of a mad scramble in the crease and poked it home for his ninth tally of the year. Just 55 seconds later, Shawn Szydlowski threaded a pass from below the goal line to Gabriel Desjardins who zipped a wrist shot into the back of the net to put Fort Wayne in front to stay. For Desjardins, it was his sixth of the season.
By the 12:42 mark of the frame, the Komets had amassed a 16-1 shot advantage over the Solar Bears and they were not finished. With just under four minutes left before the second intermission, Cazzola led an odd-man rush into the Orlando defensive zone. Using his teammates as decoys, he held onto the puck and picked the top corner of the net for his second of the game and tenth of the season. Then in the final minute of the frame, Bobby Shea put a wrister past Massa for his third of the year and a commanding 4-1 lead at the break.
The Solar Bears came out for the final period in a determined mood, which ended up turning up the intensity level beyond the breaking. A heavy hit on Trevor Ludwig by a Fort Wayne player incited a huge fracas 54 seconds into the frame. The highlight of the brawl were battles between Orlando’s Taylor Doherty and Fort Wayne’s Kyle Thomas followed by a heavyweight go between the Solar Bears Joe Perry and the Komets Bobby Shea. By the time the ice chips settled, Doherty, Perry and Shea were given game misconducts and Orlando was missing Manderson who had received a ten minute misconduct.
To make matters worse, Doherty had receiven an instigator minor, giving the Komets a power play. It took a mere 28 seconds for Szydlowski and Schaafsma to set up Cazzola for the goal that completed his hat trick at the 1:22 mark of the frame.
Fort Wayne was able to take more advantage of its special teams late in regulation when both Thomas (14th) and Szydlowski (14th) found the back of the net for power play scores. The Komets finished the game 3-for-5 with the man advantage.
Despite giving up seven goals, Massa played a decent game in net. He faced 46 shots – 36 coming in the final forty minutes – and managed to stop 39 of them under trying circumstances. Bartus made 21 saves on 22 shots to pick up the win.
Notes: For the second straight game, Orlando went 0-for-6 with the man advantage. They finished the three game swing through Kalamazoo and Fort Wayne with a dismal 1-for-17 record on the power play… The teams combined for 106 penalty minutes in the contest with 62 of them assessed to Orlando… Sunday’s game marked the 100th in a Solar Bears uniform for forward Patrick Watling…The Solar Bears were without forward Eric Faille, who was recalled by the AHL Toronto Marlies following Saturday’s game in Kalamazoo. He played in Toronto’s game against the Albany Devils on Sunday afternoon… Orlando will finish its pre-Christmas schedule with a home-and-home set with the Everblades. After Wednesday’s meeting in Estero at 7:30 p.m., the teams will come back up to the City Beautiful for a game on Thursday night at 7 p.m.
Contact the author at don.money@prohockeynews.com
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