ORLANDO, FLA – Playing three games in three days is a daunting task for even the best conditioned hockey player. By the time that final game comes along, finding the energy to play at a high level is not easy to do.
Sunday evening, the Orlando Solar Bears and Florida Everblades faced each other for the third time in as many days and looked the part of two tired teams. In the end, the Everblades (23-11-0-0, 46 points) mustered up just enough offense to topple the host Solar Bears (12-14-2-3, 29 points) by a final of 4-1 in front of an announced crowd of 5,573 at the Amway Center.
The loss denied Orlando a weekend sweep of the South division leading Everblades. Despite knocking off Florida twice, Solar Bears head coach Anthony Noreen lamented the fact that the outcome could have been much different had his team converted on some of its chances created by slick passing through the center ice zone.
“What I can say about what we did through the neutral zone [was that] we generated five breakaways through it. It wasn’t always clean [but] obviously the ones we did get we got in pretty good on net and it led to one goal. You can’t miss on four of them,” Noreen said. “This type of game, like I said [it was the] third game in three days. Obviously there wasn’t a ton of pace to it especially compared to the last two nights. [When] you get chances like that, we’ve got to put them in the back of the net. To me that was the story of the game.”
Sunday’s narrative began to be written just over a minute into the contest. Solar Bears defenseman Eric Baier took control of the puck in his end of the ice and looked up to see teammate T.J. Foster flying toward the Everblades blue line. Baier executed a perfect stretch pass to Foster who went in alone and beat Florida goalie Anthony Peters between the legs for his tenth goal of the season at the 1:11 mark. The assist for Baier was his 100th professional point.
“One of our game plans all year has been the weak (side) winger stretching the zone and pushing the defense back. The weak D got caught up and I just slipped behind him,” Foster said. “Eric made a really nice pass for me to get that half breakaway. I just wanted to get a shot on net to see what happens. I think I got lucky and [it] went five hole. It felt good to get one on the first shift of the game and get rolling.”
Orlando starting goalie Rob Madore, who 24 hours earlier had back stopped the AHL Toronto Marlies to a win, was cruising along until the10:54 mark of the frame when he stopped a point blank shot by Everblades forward Ryan Martindale. The rebound came out to Matt Willows who shoveled it home for his twelfth of the year to even the score.
The middle period was as defensive as two teams running on fumes could be. Although Madore was slightly busier, it was Peters who stole the spotlight with key saves on Erik Bradford and Johnny McInnis from in close. Neither team found the back of the net, sending the contest to the final twenty minutes tied.
The Solar Bears opened the third with some immediate pressure which Peters (18 saves) handled pretty easily. Madore was doing the same until the 5:16 mark when Evan Bloodoff took a pass from Matt Marquardt and bolted into the Orlando end. Bloodoff proceeded to turn past the defender and pop the puck past Madore to give the Everblades the lead. For Bloodoff, it was his ninth tally of the season.
It took the Solar Bears offense most of the final period to gain any traction in the Florida defensive zone. When they did, Peters – who played every second of the three weekend games – was there to make the key saves.
With a little over a minute left, Noreen pulled Madore (21 saves) for an extra attacker. The move backfired when Kevin Lynch scored an unassisted empty net goal ten seconds later to push the lead to two. Brant Harris out hustled the Solar Bears to negate an icing and add a second empty netter in the final minute to close the scoring.
Orlando now heads out on a season-long seven game, sixteen day road trip. Noreen said that he expects his team to carry the confidence built in beating Florida twice with it.
“If that (Florida) is the best team in our conference and we just played them [in] those three games and we liked the way we played, liked the way we matched up all three nights, we should be full of confidence,” he said. “We should go out, we should be confident, we should roll on this road trip.”
Contact the author at Don.money@prohockeynews.com
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