ORLANDO, FLA – Twice on Saturday evening, downtown Orlando felt seismic rumbles that reverberated through the sports scene. The first was the 100th professional goal by Orlando City Soccer star striker Dom Dwyer that proved to be the winning margin in a 3-2 victory over San Jose. The second came an hour or so later when Orlando Solar Bears forward Jean Dupuy nearly blew the roof off of the Amway Center with a score that meant everything to local hockey fans.
The Orlando Solar Bears swarm teammate Jean Dupuy, whose overtime goal gave them a series sweep over the South Carolina Stingrays on Saturday night. (Photo courtesy of Fernando Medina / Orlando Solar Bears)
Dupuy netted his first goal of the 2018 ECHL Kelly Cup Playoffs at 17:12 of the first overtime to give the Solar Bears a 2-1 victory over the South Carolina Stingrays in front of an announced and very loud crowd of 8,081. With the win, Orlando completed a four-game sweep of the Stingrays for the ECHL franchise’s first ever post-season series win and a first ever trip to the second round and a date with the Florida Everblades begining on Friday.
“I’m just happy it’s over. They [South Carolina] played us hard all series. I think we played really well,” Dupuy said following his game-winning effort. “We came out strong every single game. The last two games in overtime could have gone either way. I’m really happy they went our way. We definately showed up for this series and we’re going to show up for the rest. It’s a good stepping stone and I’m just happy it’s over.”
Dupuy’s heroics were again propelled by the work of goalie Cal Heeter in net. Heeter stopped another 41 shots on Saturday, bringing his four game total to 149 saves on 152 shots faced – a .980 save percentage – and a goals against average of 0.66.
Dupuy’s tally was set up by the work of defenseman Nolan Valleau, who drove the puck into the South Carolina end and behind the net. Seeing a double team on Valleau, Dupuy dug the puck out of the scrum and wheeled in front of Stingrays netminder Parker Milner before firing a shot to the goalie’s stick side for the winner.
“I think Dupes is a great player. He’s big, he skates really well. He’s got a hard shot and he’s not afraid to go to the net,” Solar Bears head coach and general manager Drake Berehowsky said about Dupuy. “You put all those things together and it makes for a pretty good hockey player. [When] he left here [for a callup to the AHL Toronto Marlies], he was on top of his game and right now he’s playing really well ane we’re happy to have him with us.”
With the Stingrays in a win-or-go-home mentality, the game started at a frenetic pace and never really stopped. The visitors came out hard, both with shots and with physical play, that forced Heeter and his teammates to the defensive on many occasions. Unlike Thursday, the Solar Bears were able to get some offensive push and fought back with some big hits of their own. South Carolina outshot Orlando in the opening frame 12-7 but for the fourth time in the series, the teams were deadlocked at 0-0 at the first intermission.
The middle stanza started with a slew of penalties, a couple of them coming out of a scrum that got nasty pretty quickly when Orlando’s Mike Monfredo and South Carolina’s Evan Fiala got reacquainted, that could have slowed the game’s pace to a crawl. Instead, the hitting became more intense and the huge crowd hung on every shot and save.
The game opening goal came a little past the halfway point of the period and the contest. With the Stingrays’ Tommy Hughes in the penalty box,the Solar Bears power play, which had failed on two earlier advantages, came to life. Veteran forward Chris Crane worked the puck back to the point where Max Novak whipped a pass to Sam Jardine who was stationed along the blue line directly in line with the net. Using a triple stack of bodies (two Solar Bears and one Stingray) screening Milner, Jardine unleashed a frozen rope that beat the goalie low to the stick side for his first post-season score.
Orlando had a golden opportunity to double the lead later when two Stingrays penalties created a five-on-three advantage for 1:21 of playing time. True to their regular season billing, South Carolina’s penalty killers snuffed out the Solar Bears offense. A subsequent Orlando power play almost came back to haunt when Nick Roberto got loose on a break-in but Heeter saved the day.
Solar Bears goalie Cal Heeter makes one of his 41 saves with South Carolina’s Joe Devin (8, center) looking for a rebound during Saturday night’s game (Photo courtesy of Fernando Medina / Orlando Solar Bears)
In the final minute of the period, South Carolina had an opportunity to tie the score on the power play. Once again, Orlando’s Heeter held the fort, making a glove save on a puck that squirted past him. As they had all series long, a temmate – this time Kyle Rankin – slid in behind the goalie just in case Heeter needed some help but it was not necessary.
Early in the third period, the Stingrays did even the score thanks to its special teams. With Mason Mitchell in the box, defenseman Paul Geiger made a perfect stretch pass to Patrick Megannety who carried the puck into the Orlando end. Megannety got to the faceoff circle to Heeter’s right and fired a shot that somehow got past the goalie for a short-handed tally and Megannety’s first goal of the playoffs.
The Stingrays and Solar Bears played the rest of the third in a virtual next goal wins attitude, carrying the crowd on an emotional roller coaster. South Carolina continued to pile shots on Heeter and every time the Orlando goalie made a stop, the crowd broke into chants of “Heeter, Heeter” that echoed throughout the building.
Milner, was just as good as his counterpart at the other end, adding six saves in the final period to his effort from the first forty minutes. By the time time ran out in the frame, the teams were still tied and heading to a second straight overtime contest.
Heeter came up with two clutch saves early in the extra period on the way to recording eight straight in the stanza. At the other end, Milner was not forced to make a save until a shot by Dupuy with 5:43 left on the clock. As time continued to wind down, it again looked like a second overtime period was going to be needed before Dupuy struck, setting off a celebration six years in the making on the ice and in the stands.
Milner finished the series with 88 saves on 95 shots faced – a .926 save percentage and a 1.54 goals against average – more than good enough to win a series. His efforts drew well deserved praise from South Carolina head coach Ryan Warsofsky.
“He gave us a chance to win every hockey game. I don’t think you can look back at one game this year where you said he wasn’t on,” Warsofsky said about his goalie. “He gave us a chance to win. He gave us a chance to win tonight but we just came up short.”
The disappointment in the facial expression and tone from Warsofsky, whose Stingrays got to last year’s Kelly Cup finals where they lost to Colorado, was in stark contrast to the joy at the other end of the hallway.
“I’m pretty happy. Kind of a surreal feeling I guess coming in and sweeping these guys wasn’t really a thought I guess so to do it in and be able to have this week off to rest and go play Florida, I think we’re just kind of going to soak this moment in,” forward Joe Perry, one of two players left from last year’s team that lost to the Everblades in seven games, said.
As for Heeter, his laser-like focus was already looking toward the division finals against Florida. Asked whether he thought the Solar Bears were at a point where they believed they were ready to finally take a playoff series from the Everblades, he gave an emphatic yes.
“I’m completely confident in our game right now so we’ll be able to make this a good series and that we’ll be able to pull it out against these guys,” Heeter said. “We’re going to take these next two days off to rest and recuperate at this very tough series with two overtime games. Then we’ll get back to work on Tuesday and we’ll be ready to play against these guys this weekend.”
Games one and two of the South division final will be played on Friday, April 27th and Saturday, April 28th at Germain Arena. The series will then head north to Orlando for games three and four on Thursday, May 3rd and Friday, May 4th with a possible game five set for Sunday, May 6th also in the City Beautiful. The rest of the schedule will be released in the coming days.
Notes: Florida outshot Orlando in the game 42-23. For the series, the Stingrays outshot the Solar Bears 152-96… The Solar Bears penatly killers stopped all four Stingrays man advantage opportunities to finish the series with a perfect mark of 18 successful kills in 18 tries… Orlando went 1-for-8 on the power play to finish the series 2-for-19… With an assist on Jardine’s goal, Crane tied Denver Manderson for most playoff points by a Solar Bear at 10… Tayler Thompson saw his first action of the playoffs while Chris LeBlanc returned to the lineup for the Solar Bears. The pair dressed in place of J.J. Piccinich and Kale Kerbashian who both sat out the contest… The four-game sweep allowed Orlando to bring its overall record in post-season games to 11-12… Both of the Solar Bears affiliates also won on Saturday as the Toronto Marlies defeated Utica 3-2 in overtime to take a 1-0 lead in their best-of-five first round series while the Toronto Maple Leafs downed Boston 4-3 to cut the Bruins lead in their best-of-seven series to 3-2.
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