JACKSONVILLE, FLA – Whenever they played last season, the Orlando Solar Bears pretty much dominated the Jacksonville Icemen. Sure, the Icemen were in their inaugural season when most teams struggle. Still, Orlando put the pedal down on its newest rival, going 7-1-1-0 in the nine meetings.
Friday night at the Jacksonville Veterans Memorial Arena, the Icemen started off the 2018-19 season series against their in-state foes from Central Florida in convincing fashion.
Led by Alexis D’Aoust who scored two goals and added two assists, Jacksonville (2-0-0-0) scored six unanswered goals to defeat Orlando (1-3-0-0) 6-2 in front of an announced crowd of 5,134. Michael Brodzinski and Hunter Fejes had the goals for the Solar Bears, who once again fell victim to a myriad of problem that have plagued them early in this season.
Despite taking a couple of early penalties in the first period, the Solar Bears controlled much of the opening frame. Goalie Martin Ouellette did much of the heavy lifing in the first six minutes, turning away six Jacksonville shots during the two penalty kills to keep his team from falling behind. His best save of the lot came when he stared down Icemen forward Cody Fowlie on a breakaway and came up with a huge stop.
Orlando held on until the mid point of the period when it struck first. At the 10:32 mark, Brady Shaw managed to get the puck back to the point to Brodzinski, one of the four players assigned to the Solar Bears by San Jose. Brodzinski let a shot rip that found its way between the shoulder of Icemen netminder Mikhail Berdin and the crossbar for the big defenseman’s first goal as a Solar Bear.
The visitors had a huge opportunity fall in their laps shortly thereafter when Jacksonville’s Garet Hunt was slapped with a five minute major and game misconduct for slashing Orlando’s Zach Todd, who was making his Solar Bears debut. The Icemen did an outstanding job, keeping the Solar Bears from taking advantage.
Late in the frame, Orlando doubled its lead. It came when Mike Monfredo saw Fejes all alone near the net and threaded a perfect pass. All Fejes had to do was slam dunk it into the back of the net for his third tally of the season. It gave the Solar Bears a 2-0 lead heading into the first intermission.
The Solar Bears went back on the power play very early in the second frame but again the Icemen penalty killers came up with a huge kill to keep it a two goal game. Two minutes later, they trimmed the Orlando lead in half when a failed defensive zone clear lead to Jack Glover setting up D’Aoust for a redirect in front that beat Ouellette. For D’Aoust, it was his second of the year and just the start of his big night.
Jacksonville evened the scoreboard up three minutes later thanks to some more special teams play. With Orlando trying to kill a penalty, veteran Wacey Rabbit got the puck to Garret Cockerill and the defensemen, on loan from the AHL’s Cleveland Monsters, found the back of the net for his first in an Icemen uniform.
Then with just under two minutes left before the break, the Icemen again took advantage of a power play to take the lead for good. It came when Ouellette stopped a shot by Dajon Mingo from the point. Everett Clark got to the loose puck and slid it between the goalie’s legs for his first of the season with 58.3 ticks left on the clock.
Just as Clark’s shot was sliding across the line, Orlando’s Vincent Dunn hit Clark from behind, running the forward’s head into the post. The net lifted off its moorings but the officials allowed the score and hit Dunn with a five minute major and game misconduct for hitting from behind, keeping the Icemen on the man advantage heading into the third up 3-2.
Dunn’s penalty came back to haunt his team 27 seconds into the final stanza when Rabbit got loose on the backside and jammed home a pass from Cameron Critchlow for his first of the season to make it 4-2. Although Orlando killed the remainder of the penalty, the damage was done.
For his part, Berdin, a 2016 draft choice of the Winnipeg Jets (6th round), had put the first period behind him and was stopping everything in sight. Midway through the third he stoned Fejes, one of 23 saves he made in recording his second win of the season.
The Icemen kept their skates on the pedal and scored twice more to salt the game away. Fowlie picked up his second of the season at the 11:57 mark and D’Aoust added his second of the night with eleven seconds to go to cap the statement victory.
Notes: Final shots were 33-25 in favor of Jacksonville… The Icemen went 3-for-8 on the power play while the Solar Bears were 0-for-4… Ouellette finished the night with 27 saves as his record dropped to 1-2… Orlando’s Fejes extended his point streak to four games (3 goals, 2 assists) and pulled even with Colby McAuley for the team lead in goals… Jacksonville’s Hunt is now thirteen penalty minutes away from setting a new record for career penalty minutes. The mark is currently held by Cam Brown at 2,425… The Solar Bears headed out after the game for Duluth, Georgia where they will take on the Atlanta Gladiators Saturday night at 7:35 p.m. Jacksonville is off until October 25th when it hosts Atlanta.
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