DULUTH, GA – The last time the Orlando Solar Bears visited Infinite Energy Arena, they left with a convincing 6-0 victory over the host Atlanta Gladiators. Wednesday night, with just five points separating the two teams in the race for third place, the Solar Bears were hoping to continue their five-game winning streak by repeating their effort from that Saturday night in February.
There was just one problem: the Gladiators had not forgotten and had revenge on their minds.
Led by two goals and an assist by Tanner Pond and two more lamp lighters by Eric Shand, the host Gladiators (28-30-1-2, 59 points) drubbed the Solar Bears (28-26-5-1,62 points) 6-1 in front of an announced crowd of 2,992. Stephen Pierog (1 goal, 1 assist) and Drew Baker (2 assists) added multi-points to the mix as twelve different Atlanta players registered at least one point on the scoresheet.
The lone bright spot for the visitors from Central Florida was a short-handed goal by Max Novak late in the third period that broke up the shutout attempt by former Solar Bear Sean Bonar. Bonar, who was pulled early in each of his last two starts against Orlando, redeemed himself against his former employer by making 28 saves to pick up the win.
Fighting to hold on to the last playoff spot in the South division, Atlanta knew it had a chance to solidify its position and at the same time trim the margin held by Orlando for the third seed. The Gladiators came out hot, making Solar Bears starting goalie Cal Heeter stop ahalf dozen shots in the first six minutes of play, including a pretty glove save on Luke Sandler.
Orlando’s problems started eight minutes into the opening period when penalties to Chris LeBlanc and Alex Gudbranson gave the Gladiators a two-man advantage. Just as LeBlanc was stepping back on the ice, Baker set up Shand for a one-time blast that found the back of the net for the defenseman’s third goal of the season.
Exactly six minutes later, the home team doubled its lead. Pond sent a pass toward the front of the net where Darby Llewellyn redirected it past Heeter for his 14th of the year. Then in the dying seconds of the frame, Phil Lane dug the rebound of a shot by newcomer Branden Troock out of Heeter’s pads and fed the puck to Pond who knocked it into the open side of the net for his 13th of the season and a commanding 3-0 Atlanta lead going into the first intermission.
Statistically, Heeter did not have that bad of an opening stanza. He faced 24 Gladiators shots – a season high for shots allowed in a single period by Orlando – and stopped 21 of them. Two of the goals he allowed came on power plays with the first coming at the tail end of a long five-on-three Atlanta advantage. Feeling his team needed a spark, Solar Bears head coach and general manager Drake Berehowsky inserted Mackenzie Skapski into the net to start the second period.
The move did little to slow down the determined Gladiators. Just 1:45 into the middle frame, former Solar Bear Todd Skirving did what he does best by winning an offensive zone faceoff. The puck was perfectly set up for Pierog to laser a shot into the top corner of the net past Skapski’s blocker glove for Pierog’s sixth of the season.
More penalties slowed down the flow of the game but eventually it led to yet another special teams goal by Atlanta. At the 7:47 mark, a mere one second after a four-on-four situation turned into a Gladiators power play, Baker set up Shand on the back door for a redirect tap-in score for Shand’s second of the game and a 5-0 cushion.
The shell-shocked Orlando penalty killing units found themselves put to the test with a little less than seven minutes to go in the period. It took sixteen seconds for Atlanta to pick up its fourth man advantage tally of the game when Derek Nesbitt teed one up for Pond who blasted a shot off the bottom of the crossbar and in for his second of the night and 14th of the year.
Leading by six at the start of the third, the Gladiators were much more interested in preserving the shutout for Bonar as the final frame opened. The Solar Bears tried to open the game up in order to use their speed but Atlanta was not interested in getting into a shootout. Penalties again abounded in the closing twenty minutes, especially early when the frustrations of the Orlando team got the best of defenseman Mike Monfredo who was handed a ten-minute misconduct along with a minor penalty to go with matching penalties to the Solar Bears Joe Perry and the Gladiators Sandler 1:34 in.
Orlando did outshoot Atlanta 12-7 in the period but all they could manage on the scoreboard was Novak’s 16th of the season. Defenseman Adam Phillips sent Novak, who had just returned from a callup by the AHL’s Toronto Marlies, away on a short-handed breakaway. The Union College product got Bonar to go down before lifting the puck over the goalie into the net.
The Gladiators settled in after that to close out the win, their fifth in seven meetings against the Solar Bears this season.
Notes: Atlanta outshot Orlando 42-29 in the contest… The Gladiators power play went 4-for-10 while the Solar Bears finished 0-for-5… Earlier on Wednesday, Solar Bears defenseman Nolan Valleau, who had returned from a callup to AHL Chicago late last week, got the call to join the Rockford Ice Hogs in the AHL. Valleau played for Rockford each of the last two seasons prior to joining Orlando… The Solar Bears Gudbranson received a game misconduct in the first period, forcing Berehowsky to put Kyle Rankin, who started the game as the tenth forward, back on the blue line… Orlando and Atlanta will meet one more time this season on Friday, April 6th in Duluth… The Solar Bears continue their week-long road trip with a pair of weekend contests in Greenville against the Swamp Rabbits on Saturday night and Sunday afternoon.
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