ORLANDO, FLA – Usually by the first week of February, the Orlando Solar Bears and Florida Everblades have played each other enough times that the hatred between the two state of Florida rivals is at a fever pitch. Thursday night, the two squads met for just the fifth time during the 2021-22 regular season, three times in Estero and once at the Amway Center where Thursday’s match was played.
Although the Solar Bears and Everblades split those first four meetings, the result from Thursday would make one wonder if Orlando had forgotten how it had held its own in the early contests.
After scoring the first goal of the game, the Solar Bears went stone cold thanks to Everblades netminder Parker Gahagen. The visitors scored four unanswered goals to down Orlando (20-16-3-0) by a final of 4-1 in front of an announced crowd of 4,321. John McCarron scored twice for Florida (23-13-3-3) including an empty netter to put the game away.
There were two specific issues that caused the Solar Bears distress on Thursday. The first was the play of Gahagen. The Everblades goalie was sharp all evening, stopping 42 of 43 shots by the home team, frustrating the home team as much as it bothered the fans in the stands.
The second was the play of the Orlando power play units. After going through a stretch where the Solar Bears were getting at least one man advantage tally night in and night out, Orlando’s power play has gone dry of late, not having scored in the team’s last five contests. On Thursday, each team had a two-man advantage in the third period – the Everblades scored while the Solar Bears failed to connect.
The Solar Bears didn’t look like they were going to have a problem scoring when they took an early lead less than four minutes into the first period. The latest new member of the lineup, Tye Felhaber, started the sequence by getting the puck to Luke McInnis who put the disc at the Florida net, Gahagen made the initial stop but Odeen Tufto pounced on the rebound and put it under Gahagen’s arm for his second goal in an Orlando uniform.
Florida, which has had an up and down season to date but is still near the top of the South division, pulled even late in the frame. With less than two minutes left before the intermission, Jake Jeremko found Russell Jordan in the slot with a pass and Jaremko beat Orlando goalie Brad Barone for his first goal since joining the Everblades to make it a 1-1 game at the break,
From the start of the second period on, the Solar Bears took control of most of the flow of the game. They began to pound away at the Everblades cage with a barrage of shot. What the home team didn’t count on was Gahagen standing on his head to stop everything in sight. In all, Gahagen had 18 shots come his way and all 18 were denied.
There was only one puck that found the back of the net in the middle frame and it came off the stick of Florida’s Blake Winiecki. Late in the period, Winiecki took advantage of an Orlando turnover to score an unassisted goal for his 20th of the season. It gave the visitors a 2-1 lead, a lead that the Everblades would not give up.
Gahagen continued to see plenty of rubber in the third as Orlando continued its siege on the Florida end of the ice. The first key point came at the 4:43 mark when Levko Koper joined Stefan Leblanc in the Everblades penalty box, giving the Solar Bears a two-man advantage for 90 seconds. Orlando put three shots on the cage buy Gahagen stopped them all.
The second key point arrived three minutes later when the home team faced its own two-man down situation when following a scrum that saw Orlando’s Fabrizio Ricci draw a double minor for roughing, defenseman Michael Brodzinski was tagged for delay of game to give Florida a five-on-three advantage. Unlike their opponents, the Everblades cashed in on the opportunity when Leblanc fed McCarron who slotted a shot through traffic and past Barone for his 17th goal of the year and a more comfortable two-goal lead at 3-1.
The Solar Bears continued to fire away at Gahagen but the Everblades netminder refused to yield. He finished the final twenty with 17 saves on 17 shots faced. Orlando pulled Barone (20 saves on 23 shots faced) with three minutes to go but it was a lesson in futility with Gahagen playing as well as he was. McCarron sealed the win when he dialed up an empty net goal for his second of the night and 18th of the year to close out the scoresheet.
The two teams will resume their three game set Friday night in Orlando at 7 p.m. before they head southwest for game three Saturday night in Estero.
Notes: Final shots were 43-24 in favor of Orlando… The Everblades went 1-for5 on the power play while the Solar Bears went 0-for-4… Thursday night’s game was Orlando Head Coach and General Manager Drake Berehowsky’s 450th behing the bench for the Solar Bears… Orlando’s 18 second period shots and 17 third period shots were both season highs for the respective individual periods.
Contact the author at don.money@prohockeynews.com
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