BOISE, ID – When goalie Zach Fucale was sent to the Orlando Solar Bears on loan by the AHL’s Syracuse Crunch, he brought with him the promise of a netminder who had been a star on the international stage with Team Canada. In his first three starts for the Solar Bears, he showed that promise but his record reflected his teammates’ lack of scoring punch and a porous defense.Now that Orlando is beginning to find its way both on defense and offense, Fucale is starting to live up to his billing.
Wednesday night at CenturyLink Arena, Fucale set a Solar Bears franchise mark for saves in a shutout as he turned away 44 shots to lead Orlando (5-7-1-1) to a 3-0 win over the host Idaho Steelheads (8-5-2-2) in front of an announced crowd of 3,615. It was Fucale’s and the Solar Bears’ second consecutive whitewashing, coming on the heels of a 3-0 blanking of Jacksonville last Saturday. The victory also gave Orlando its first two-game winning streak on the road this season.
Rookie Rich Boyd, Mikhail Shalagin and Trevor Olson each scored a goal for the visitors while Hunter Fejes led a quartet of players in the assist column with a pair of helpers.
Fucale, who has gold medals in the Ivan Hlinka Memorial Tournament (2012-13), the Under-20 World Junior Championship (2014-15) and the Spengler Cup (2016-17), was recently called up to Syracuse as a backup to Spencer Martin when Crunch netminder Scott Wedgewood joined the Tampa Bay Lightning during its trip to Sweden. Since returning to Orlando, the Laval, Quebec native has a 2-1 record with a goals against average of 1.00 – he allowed three goals in a loss to Florida on November 14th – and has stopped 100 out of 103 shots faced in those three starts.
Fucale began his third straight start with an early dazzling save, diving to snare a shot by A.J. White. It was a harbinger of things to come as he would be called on in the back half of the opening period to make a total of 13 saves with more than half of them in the final twelve minutes of the first frame.
The Solar Bears rewarded their cager with all of the offense he would need 4:18 into the first with a goal from an unexpected source. Boyd, who made his pro debut last Saturday with a solid showing that included a fight, took a feed from Fejes and rocketed a shot past the glove hand of Idaho goalie Colton Point for his first professional goal.
Despite recording just one shot in the second half of the first, the Solar Bears had a confidence about them with Fucale locked in just as he had been in their previous contest. Orlando faced a four minute penalty kill early in the second when Taylor Doherty went off but it was the visitors who had the best chance to score when Colby McAuley busted in alone but was denied by Point. Not to be outdone, Fucale made a great pad save on a shot by Anthony Nellis who got in alone on the Solar Bears net.
Point kept his team in the game a little past the midpoint of the middle stanza when he turned away Olson who tried to stuff one inside the post. That save seemed to spark the Steelheads, who came close to trimming the lead a couple of minutes later when one time Solar Bear Joe Basaraba was able to get one past Fucale but it rang the goal post and stayed out.
Like they did in the first, the Steelheads ramped up their offense after the halfway point of the second. Idaho put seven shots on Fucale in the final eight minutes of play to four by Orlando but Fucale was rock solid, sending his team to the final frame up by one.
A carryover penalty to Idaho’s Basaraba turned into a death blow for the home team. Just 27 seconds into the third and with time running down on the power play, Orlando’s Alexey Lipanov put a perfect pass on the stick of Shalagin. Shalagin wasted no time in putting a shot inside the short side post for his second of the season and a 2-0 lead for the Solar Bears.
Shalagin’s score and a shot by defenseman Cody Donaghey in the initial 6:42 of the period were the only shots Orlando would record in the third frame until Olson scored into an empty net with a second left. In between, the Steelheads blitzed the Solar Bears defensive zone, forcing Fucale to put his team on his back. He took away what looked to be a sure goal by Basaraba from in close with a scrambling save with 11:37 left in regulation. Less than a minute later, Mitch Moroz thought he had Fucale beat with a wraparound but the Orlando netminder got to the post and held his ground to make the stop.
Things perked up a bit with just under eight minutes to go when Moroz leveled Orlando’s Tristin Langan between the two benches. Solar Bears forward Tayler Thompson, who was playing in his first game since returning from a stint in Europe, immediately dropped his gloves and took Moroz on.
As time wound down, Idaho pulled Point (19 saves) with 2:05 remaining in regulation but with Fucale in total control, the outcome was never in doubt.
Orlando will continue its four-game road trip on Friday when the Solar Bears visit the Utah Grizzlies for the first time. Puck drop is set for 9:10 p.m. Eastern time.
Notes: Final shots were 44-22 in favor of Idaho with the Steelheads dominating the third period with a count of 16-3… Orlando went 1-for-2 on the power play while Idaho was 0-for-3. The Solar Bears perfect penalty kill ran their streak to eleven games without allowing a power play goal… Erik Drapluk, who was acquired by Orlando in a three-team trade last week, made his Solar Bears debut in Wednesday night’s game, logging one shot on net… The meeting between the Solar Bears and Steelheads marked the first time the two teams had faced off in Boise.
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