NORTH CHARLESTON, SC – For much of the season Orlando Solar Bears second year forward Tristin Langan has been playing in the shadow of teammate Aaron Luchuk. Playing together, Luchuk has been scoring points almost every night while Langan has been picking up points on a nearly equal pace. 
Friday night at the North Charleston Coliseum, Luchuk continued his torrid pace but Langan stole the show.
Langan picked up his first professional hat trick while Luchuk had a goal and an assist as the visiting Solar Bears (26-18-4-1) grabbed a come-from-behind 5-3 victory over the South Carolina Stingrays (19-16-7-3) in front of a COVID-restricted crowd of 2,649. Tyler Bird had the other Orlando goal in the contest as the catalyst for a three-goal third period that brought the visitors from down 3-2 to win.
Coming into the game, Langan had tallied 14 goals and 23 assists, good for 37 points in 48 games. This year’s stats were pretty much on par with a year ago when in 45 contests he racked up 13 goals and 24 assists for 37 points. Friday night, he picked up one goal in the first and then two in the third, the first being the game-winner and the second an empty net clincher.
The Solar Bears wanted a good start to the contest and they got it, nabbing the first two goals of the night. The initial tally came just 1:19 into the opening frame when Krystof Hrabik forced a defensive turnover by the Stingrays, The puck skidded to Joe Garreffa who made a cross-slot pass to Luchuk who one-timed a shot past South Carolina goalie Matt Jurusik for his team-leading 19th of the season.
Langan got on the scoresheet for the first time at the 7:54 mark of the frame. Luchuk sent the puck back to Karlis Cukste at the point for a shot on net. Jurusik made the save but Langan was there to collect the rebound and slide it around the netminder into the cage for his 15th of the season.
From that point on, the Stingrays began to assert themselves and the hard work paid off. At 12:56, Dan Desalvo got the puck to Cole Ully in the far faceoff circle. As he got closer to Clint Windsor and the Orlando net, Ully was able to slide a pass behind two Solar Bears defenders right to the tape of Mark Cooper who redirected it home for his seventh goal of the season.
Just about three minutes later, the Stingrays were pressing again, leading to a shot by Cooper from in close. Windsor made the stop but he lost sight and control of the puck in the crease where Dan DeSalvo got to it and banged it home for his 12th score of the year to tie the game at 2-2.
South Carolina was not quite finished scoring. With 2:04 left before the intermission, Stingrays captain Andrew Cherniwchan sent the puck from the boards in the near corner to the top of the near faceoff circle. Zach Malatesta took the feed and rifled a shot past Windsor’s stick side for his fifth and a 3-2 lead for the home team after twenty minutes of play.
After a middle frame that saw Orlando dominate the shot clock at 16-6 but neither the Solar Bears nor the Stingrays found the back of the net thanks to the work of Windsor and Jurusik, the Solar Bears opened the third still on fire and ready to take the game over.
The visitors evened things up at 2:07 of the final frame. The play began with a solid rush by J.J.Piccinich into the South Carolina end. He circled the net and laid a pass to the point for Mark Auk. Auk ripped a shot that hit Bird who was passing in front of the cage and bounded past Jurusik for Bird’s 12th goal of the year to make it 3-3.
Seven minutes later, Langan was on the hunt again and netted what would prove to be the game-winner. Chris LeBlanc got control down low and got the puck back to Alex Kuqali at the point. Kuqali’s hard, low shot was stopped but the rebound careened into the slot. Langan was coming through the area and snapped a shot past Jurusik for his second of the night and 16th of the year.
A crucial point of the game came with 5:08 remaining in regulation when Orlando’s Hrabik was given a double minor for slashing, giving the Stingrays a chance to tie the contest or even regain the lead. The Solar Bears penalty killers did an amazing job, holding South Carolina’s power play to a mere one shot during the four minutes. The shot came from point blank range from DeSalvo but Windsor shut the opportunity down.
With Jurusik on the bench for an extra attacker in the final two minutes, Langan was able to finish off his hat trick. He forced a turnover at the Stingrays defensive blueline, took the puck and fired it into the empty cage with 50 seconds to go for his 17th of the 20-21 campaign to put a cap on the night.
Windsor, coming off his outing on Wednesday where he allowed six goals, returned to his season-long form. He mad 26 saves on 29 shots faced to record his 16th victory, surpassing his career high of 15 set last season. On the other side, Jurusik performed quite well, making 40 saves on 44 shots in suffering his second loss to Orlando in three days.
The Solar Bears next head west to Indianapolis to face the Indy Fuel in a three-game set that begins on Friday, April 23rd at the Indiana Farmers Coliseum.
Notes: Final shots were 44-29 in favor of Orlando… Both teams went 0-for-3 on the power play in the contest… LeBlanc’s assist in the game was his 78th career helper playing in Orlando, tying Eric Baier for third place on the franchise’s all-time list for most assists. He needs two more assists to pass Eric Faille and Denver Manderson to become the most prolific Solar Bears player when it comes to assists… Luchuk is one goal away from joining a list of 13 other Solar Bears to reach the 20-goal plateau. The last to do it was Trevor Olson a year ago. The current holder of most goals in a season by an Orlando player is Joe Perry who notched 35 goals during the 2016-17 season.
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