Garbowsky’s first pro hat trick leads Eagles to win

LOVELAND, CO – Following a so-so performance on Friday, the Colorado Eagles felt they had something to prove to their fans and maybe to themselves in Saturday’s rematch with the Orlando Solar Bears at the Budweiser Events Center. One thing that the Eagles knew for sure was that Matt Garbowsky can pretty much beat any goalie he faces.

Matt Garbowsky celebrates his first professional hat trick with his teammates (PHN photo by Terry Sanford)

Led by Garbowsky’s first professional hat trick, the Eagles (20-10-1-3, 44 points) got a measure of revenge with a convincing 5-2 victory over the Solar Bears (18-11-4-2, 42 points) in front of a sellout crowd of 5,289. Goalie Kent Simpson backed up Garbowsky’s big night with 34 saves between the pipes.

Unlike Friday’s meeting where the visitors had the early jump, Colorado did not even let its fans settle into their seats before opening the scoring. Just 35 seconds into the first period, Garbowsky went to the front of the net and redirected a shot from Mason Geertsen past Orlando goalie Kasimir Kaskisuo for his twelfth of the season. The big forward actually began the whole sequence by winning a face-off over to Josh Nicholls who sent the puck back to Geertsen while Garbowsky headed to the scoring area.

After killing off a penalty, the Eagles went on their first power play of the night and made the Solar Bears pay. It only took the home team 53 seconds of man advantage time to score when Shawn St-Amant was in the right place to whack home the rebound of a Matt Register blast from the point at the 6:11 mark. For St-Amant, the tally was his third of the season.

The rest of the opening frame was quiet scoring-wise but it certainly was not void of animosity. With about five minutes left before the intermission, Ryan Harrison crushed Solar Bears newcomer Darik Angeli. Angeli took a swing at Harrison which was duly noted by Colorado tough guy Darryl Bootland. Angeli and Bootland squared off with Bootland sending his former Eagles teammate down with a quick shot.

Trailing 2-0 heading to the second, the Solar Bears forced Simpson to make a couple of early saves, one coming on a solid scoring chance by Joe Perry. Moments later the Eagles thought they had a third score but referee Stephen Thomson ruled that Jesse Mychan had knocked the puck into the net with a high stick.

Tempers became frayed again at the 3:53 mark of the middle frame and once again Bootland was in the middle of things. He laid a heavy hit on Orlando’s Patrick Watling, sending the speedy forward to the ice in obvious pain (he would leave the game but returned later). Alexandre Carrier immediately took up for Watling, squaring off with Bootland. When the dust settled, Bootland was handed a five-minute major for kneeing Watling and a game misconduct in addition to the fighting major he earned in the bout with Carrier.

The Solar Bears took very little time – six seconds in fact – to get right back into the game. Playing with the power play created by Bootland’s infraction, Austin Block sent the puck back to Nik Brouillard who immediately made a cross-ice pass to Brenden Miller who zipped a wrist shot over Simpson for his sixth goal of the season. It was also the fifth consecutive game in which Miller had lit the goal light, tying him with Ryan Cruthers for the franchise record for consecutive contests with a score.

What was left of the extended man advantage became truncated when a pair of penalties eliminated much of the power play time the solar Bears could have had.

Colorado got an opportunity of its own on the power play at the 13:07 mark when Chris Crane was called for slashing. The Eagles made quick work of the advantage when Casey Pierro-Zabotel made a perfect cross-slot feed to the opposite side of the play where Mychan made up for his earlier mistake by slamming the puck past Kaskisuo for his 20th goal of the year.

After watching the Solar Bears eliminate a two-goal lead in the final frame the night before, the Eagles started the third period in attack mode looking for the final dagger. It took just one minute of play for Colorado to extend its lead to 4-1 when Nicholls set up Garbowsky for a bomb from the top of the face-off circle that beat Kaskisuo for his second of the night and thirteenth of the 2016-17 campaign.

Orlando got that one back at the 4:36 mark when captain Eric Baier saw a loose puck in the slot and quickly got to it. The veteran defenseman fired a hard wrist shot that zipped past Simpson for his third of the season.

The Solar Bears continued to push with hopes of climbing closer but Simpson was more than equal to the task, holding the visitors at bay. Orlando head coach Drake Berehowsky pulled Kaskisuo, who made 23 saves in the contest, but could only watch as Garbowsky sealed his hat trick with 1:14 remaining off a feed from Luke Salazar.

Orlando finished the game 1-for-4 with the man advantage while Colorado went 2-for 5.

The teams will play one more game Sunday afternoon at 3:05 p.m. Mountain time/5:05 p.m. Eastern time. From Loveland, the Solar Bears will head to Anchorage, Alaska for a three-game set with the Alaska Aces that begins on Wednesday.