ORLANDO, FLA – By its definition, the word resilience is “the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties or toughness”. Monday night at the Amway Center, the Orlando Solar Bears needed to be every bit of that definition in order to stop a four game winless streak as well as grab its first win of the season against the South division leading South Carolina Stingrays.
It took more than sixty minutes of playing time but the Solar Bears proved that they indeed, at least on this night, fit the definition perfectly.
Orlando goalie Zach Fucale (35, purple) looks for the puck as South Carolina’s Dylan Steman tries to set a screen during Monday’s first period (Photo courtesy of Fernando Medina / Orlando Solar Bears)
Forward Tristin Langan played the part of the hero, scoring 2:38 into overtime to lift Orlando (6-9-3-1) to a 4-3 victory over South Carolina (14-2-1-0) in front of an announced crowd of 2,804. Blake Kessel (goal, assist), Jake Coughler (goal, assist), Michael Brodzinski (2 assists) and Colby McAuley (2 assists) each recorded multi-point nights, matching the number of times the Solar Bears erased deficits before finally skating away with two points.
“I think we’ve got a pretty close-knit group in there. I think guys want to play for each other, guys want to see each other succeed,” Orlando Head Coach and General Manager Drake Berehowsky said when asked about his team’s resiliency. “Anytime you have that and you have a whole staff that cares about this organization, I think you’re always eventually come through things. The guys showed a lot of resilience but we’ve still got to work on our game and we’ve still got to get better. It’s still going to be a process.”
Langan’s winner was a case of a perfect line change catching the opposition off guard. The Solar Bears gained control of the puck in their defensive zone and looked to get some fresh legs onto the ice. Coughler dropped the puck to Langan, who had come off the bench, and the rookie from Swan River, Manitoba did the rest. He quickly curled over to the opposite wing, catching the Stingrays in a change that left a clear path into the South Carolina end of the ice. Langan drove to the slot before firing a quick shot to the top corner over Stingrays goalie Parker Milner’s blocker glove, setting off a celebration at center ice that looked a whole lot happier than at any time up to this point during the 2019-20 campaign.
“That’s exactly what it feels like,” Langan said when asked if the win was akin to at least a partial lifting of a weight from the team’s collective shoulders. “It was a tough start to the game. We got down but the boys got together [and] they battled. I think we had revenge in the back of our minds from the other game [Saturday night’s loss]. We got it done and that’s all that matters.”
Mired in a stretch that saw them score just four goals over four games, the Solar Bears desperately need to find a way to turn on the goal light while holding off South Carolina’s potent offense that was netting almost four goals a game and seeking a fifth straight win over the boys from the City Beautiful. On this night, Berehowsky sent out goalie Zach Fucale, he of the fourth best goals against average (2.06) and third best save percentage (.939) in the league, to try to break the bad mojo against the league’s number one netminder, South Carolina’s Parker Milner.
Things did not start out well for the home team. Just 59 seconds into the opening frame, Mark Cooper won the puck along the boards and sent it to Cole Ully. Ully in turn found a wide open Jordan Klimek who wired a shot over Fucale’s right shoulder for his second of the season.
Filled with confidence, the visitors doubled their lead eight minutes later. Ully sent the puck toward the net where it hit the skate of a defender and bounced to Andrew Cherniwchan. Cherniwchan quickly went to his backhand and shoveled the biscuit into the short side top corner for his eighth of the year at the 9:01 mark.
Staked to a two goal lead, Milner started to settle in with his sights set on keeping the home team off the scoreboard. He was stopping everything in sight until a bit of luck intervened on behalf of Orlando.
Solar Bears defenseman Kevin Lohan (22, purple) fights with Stingrays captain Andrew Cherniwchan in front of the net during the first period on Monday night (Photo courtesy of Fernando Medina / Orlando Solar Bears)
With 5:34 to go before the first intermission, the Solar Bears McAuley drove into the Stingrays defensive zone and worked the puck to defenseman Brodzinski. Brodzinski fired toward the front of the net where it clipped the backside of Coughler and deflected past Milner for Coughler’s first goal with Orlando as well as his first professional goal in North America.
It was a big goal for Coughler as well as the Solar Bears.
“I saw Colbs [McAuley] flying down the wing and hit him [with a pass] with speed. Brodsy [Brodzinski] made a great play jumping up into the play. I was just driving the net and it hit me in the rear end. I’ll take it any way they come,” Coughler said. “It was a huge goal for us. [It] cut the deficit in half. The positivity [on the bench] was great all game and we came into the dressing room [after we] cut that lead in half and we knew we were in a good spot for sure.”
The positive vibes carried over into the middle frame when Orlando got a boost from its lagging power play to even things up. With the Stingrays’ (and former Solar Bear) Max Novak in the box, Alexy Lipanov fed Kessel who ripped a wrist shot through traffic and into the cage for his first goal since returning to the Orlando lineup.
Faced with a little bit of adversity, South Carolina responded like the first place team it is with a special teams marker of its own. With Jimmy Lodge off for hooking, a faceoff win by the visitors led to the puck going to the point to Kristofers Bindulis who fired at the Orlando net. Fucale made the save but Mitch Vanderlaan got his stick on the rebound, shoving it in the direction of Jonathan Charbonneau. In the ensuing scramble, Charbonneau was able to poke it free and slid it across the goal line for his second of the year and a 3-2 lead that the Stingrays took into the final frame.
Still believing in themselves, the Solar Bears came out in the third and quickly tied things up for the second time on the night. It only took 53 seconds after the faceoff to start the period for McAuley to find a wide open Trevor Olson who went top shelf on Milner’s stick side for his fourth of the year and a deadlock on the scoreboard.
Soon after, the Stingrays had a glorious chance to retake the lead when a pair of overlapping penalties to Chris LeBlanc and McAuley left Orlando down two men for 1:33 of playing time. Fucale, who had gotten stronger as the game progressed, turned aside three shots during the South Carolina five-on-three advantage to keep the score even.
South Carolina’s Mitch Vanderlaan (16, white) tries to tuck the puck past Orlando goalie Zach Fucale during Monday’s second period (Photo courtesy of Fernando Medina / Orlando Solar Bears)
As the game wound into the final minute of regulation, it was evident that the next goal would likely be the winner. With forty ticks remaining,the Stingrays Dan DeSalvo drove hard to the net, colliding with Fucale and sending the pair plus the puck crashing into the netand displacing the cage from its moorings. Referee Maxime Primeau ruled no goal on the ice and after consulting the his two linesmen, went to a video review to check the play out. After all three officials looked at the video tablet, Primeau’s ruling was confirmed and the game went to the extra period.
Both sides were very careful as the overtime started, each not wanting to give the other an odd man rush or a clean breakaway that might end the contest. Milner (35 saves) denied Brodzinski a minute in, the only shot on net until Langan’s winner.
Coughler, who was playing in his ninth game since joining the Solar Bears, said that the team’s resilience during Monday’s game was a good indicator of how the squad is coming together.
“It’s been an uphill battle. Tonight it seemed like every time we would get a little headway or come back, they jumped right back on us and got another one [goal],” Coughler said. “In a situation like that, it’s so easy to get down and say here we go again type of thing. It’s a really good group we have in this room right now. It’s a lot of new faces but everyone is gelling real well and the resiliency – between all three periods – everyone was positive. That’s the way we need to be moving forward to be successful.”
With a three games in three days set starting Thursday night at the Amway Center against Jacksonville, Langan said that putting in an identical effort to the ones the Solar Bears put in on Saturday and Monday would be the key to keeping the momentum going forward.
“It’s just going to take the same effort that we had these past two games. I think our first game against South Carolina, we played well too and we got the win tonight,” Langan said. “We’ve just got to keep the same effort going into Thursday, Friday and Saturday.”
Orlando’s Blake Kessel (2, center) celebrates his second period goal with the bench and the crowd (Photo courtesy of Fernando Medina / Orlando Solar Bears)
For Berehowsky, seeing his team score four goals and getting multi-point nights from multiple players was a sight for sore eyes but he was not exactly ready to declare a turning of a corner as far as the offense is concerned.
“I hope so,” Berehowsky said. “We’ve watched a lot of video the last couple of days. The guys understand what they have to do to have success. They understand how to score goals so hopefully they’ll continue to do that and hopefully things will turn in our direction.”
Notes: Final shots were 39-27 in favor of Orlando… The Solar Bears went 1-for-4 on the power play, breaking a four game drought, while the Stingrays were 1-for-6… With their goals, both Olson and Langan tied LeBlanc for the lead in tallies on Orlando’s current active roster… With the win, Orlando jumped up into fifth place in the South division ahead of both Jacksonville and Norfolk… Monday’s victory marked the first time during the 2019-20 season that the Solar Bears had won when trailing after two periods… Thursday’s game against Jacksonville as well as the Friday and Saturday contests against the Atlanta Gladiators at the Amway Center are all slated for 7 p.m. puck drops with Saturday’s game being the annual Teddy Bear Toss game.
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