ORLANDO, FLA – Staring at an upcoming seven-game, three week long road trip, the Orlando Solar Bears saw Sunday afternoon’s meeting with the South Carolina Stingrays as a way to springboard away from the friendly home ice at the Amway Center on a positive note. With a win, the Solar Bears would be on a modest two-game winning streak heading into the month of February and feeling good about themselves.
And thanks to a trio of key players making big contributions along with several others doing their part, Orlando sent the month of January away on a solid note.
Behind a goal and an assist each from Jerry D’Amigo and Mark Auk and some brilliant goaltending by Garret Sparks, the Solar Bears (8-6-1-0) put together one of their best performances of the season in a 4-1 victory over the South Carolina Stingrays (8-3-3-0) in front of a COVID-restricted crowd of 2,250. Johno May (2 assists) and captain Chris LeBlanc (2 assists) also chipped in with multi-point efforts to secure the win.
Despite knowing that the Stingrays were coming off a weekend split with the Florida Everblades and playing their third game in less than three days, the Solar Bears expected that it would take a solid team effort to come away with two points.
The effort that Head Coach and General Manager Drake Berehowsky as well as the home fans wanted to see took a little bit to develop. South Carolina started off with plenty of energy, putting four shots on Sparks in the opening 1:01 of the first period. Thanks to Sparks, the Solar Bears were able to weather the storm and began to push back. The pushback bore fruit at the 6:38 mark when May carried the puck into the Stingrays end a dropped a pass to Auk who fired a frozen rope from the faceoff circle past the glove hand of South Carolina netminder Jake Kupsky for his first goal of the season and a 1-0 Orlando lead.
Four minutes into the second period, the Stingrays’ Andrew Cherniwchan got behind the Orlando defense and broke in alone, causing Alex Kuqali to impede him from behind. Referee Jacob Rekucki awarded Cherniwchan a penalty shot but Sparks denied the South Carolina captain of a goal when he flashed his catching glove to snare Cherniwchan’s attempt.
Buoyed by the performance being put in by Sparks, the Orlando offense went to work. A little under four minutes after the penalty shot, May slid a pass to LeBlanc who skated in on a two-on-one break with D’Amigo. LeBlanc’s feed to D’Amigo hit the forwards skate but he deftly bounced it to his stick blade. Circling around the net, D’Amigo got enough angle coming out the back side to carom the biscuit off of Kupsky’s left pad and in for his second goal as a Solar Bear.
Late in the frame, the Solar Bears got their third man advantage of the contest. Orlando’s power play, which was on a 0-for-11 dating back to last Wednesday, got a much needed goal when defenseman Matthew Spencer waited for a shooting lane to open up before sending a low, hard shot at the net. Zack Andrusiak, who was crossing in front of Kupsky, got his stick on the drive and redirected it into the back of the net for his first goal of the season and giving the Solar Bears a commanding 3-0 lead heading into the second intermission.
Beginning the final twenty minutes on a carryover power play, Orlando put the final dagger into the Stingrays. Just 34 seconds into the period, Aaron Luchuk and Auk traded a series of passes along the top on the man advantage umbrella setup. Finally, Auk teed up the disc for a one-time rocket by Luchuk that sailed passed a screened Kupsky for his third of the year.
Luchuk’s tally put the home team up by four, leaving the only question left to answer was whether Sparks would notch the shutout. Former Solar Bear Paul Meyer put visions of a goose egg to rest when he blasted a shot past a screened Sparks at the 8:56 mark for his first professional goal.
It was the lone puck that got past Sparks, who finished the game with 26 saves. At the other end of the ice, Kupsky, who was finishing off a grueling three games in three days stint, played valiantly turning away 39 of 43 Solar Bears shots.
Orlando returns to the ice on Friday when it travels to Estero for a two-game weekend set with the Everblades. South Carolina has a shorter turnaround as Greenville invades North Charleston for the front end of a home-and-home set on Wednesday with the return matchup in Greenville on Thursday.
Notes: Final shots were 43-27 in favor of Orlando. The 43 Solar Bears shots were a season high… The Stingrays went 0-for-3 on the power play while Orlando finished 1-for-7 with the man advantage… The last penalty shot faced by an Orlando goalie at the Amway Center came on March 2, 2019 when Florida’s Patrick Bajkov was awarded one on Solar Bears rookie goalie Corbin Boes. Boes made the save but the Everblades won the game 4-2… Orlando goalies all time have faced 16 penalty shots, stopping 13 of them. Sparks faced his third career penalty shot in a Solar Bears uniform on Sunday and is now a perfect 3-for-3 in stopping them… The Solar Bears are now 5-0 when scoring first in a game this season… Sunday’s game was the first meeting of the season between the two South division foes.
Contact the author at don.money@prohockeynews.com
Follow us on Twitter @prohockeynews
You must be logged in to post a comment.