PORTLAND, ME – A couple of years ago, the Orlando Solar Bears had to face goalie Callum Booth when he played for the Florida Everblades. On several occasions, Booth got the best of the Solar Bears.
Sunday afternoon, Booth was in a different uniform but he was still able to frustrate the team from O-Town.
Booth stopped 31 of 32 shots while his teammates scored three times in the third period to lift the Maine Mariners (15-14-3-1) to a 4-1 win over Orlando (19-15-2-0) in front of an announced crowd of 2,203 at the Cross Insurance Arena. Patrick Shea led the way for the Mariners with two goals while Mathew Santos netted his third tally in two games.
Solar Bears netminder Brad Barone was the biggest star for the visitors. He stopped 38 of 41 Orlando shots, keeping his squad within reach for much of the contest. Luke Boka scored the lone Solar Bears goal late in the game.
Given that Sunday’s contest was the third in three days and that each of the first two had some hints of bad blood, it was no surprise that the matinee game was a rough and tumble affair. A particularly hard hit by Maine’s Jake Bricknell on Orlando’s Tyler Bird led to Solar Bears defenseman challenging Bricknell to a fight. Soon after, a charging call on the Mariners’ Zach Malatesta led to a power play for the visitors that produced a mere one shot on net and no goal being scored.
Late in that first frame, Maine opened the scoring. Shea, Santos and Nick Master entered the Orlando defensive zone as a unit. Shea swung to the left and took a cross-ice pass from Santos. Shea fired on net but Barone made the initial save. Master got to the rebound, forcing Barone to make a second save. Shea followed in behind Master and popped the puck over the outstretched right leg pad of Barone for his fifth goal of the season.
The Mariners held on to that 1-0 lead through the entire second period as Barone and Booth settled into a continuation of the battle of the netminders between Orlando’s Amir Miftakhov and Maine’s Jeremy Brodeur from the night before. Booth stopped all 15 Solar Bears shots in the frame while Barone turned away all 18 Mariners attempts. Adding to the visitors frustration, Orlando’s Hunter Fejes solidly ringing the post from point blank range.
The biggest excitement of the period came when Orlando’s Bird slammed Maine captaon Connor Doherty into the boards. Conner Bleackley immediately took up for Doherty and engaged Bird. Doherty ended up squaring off with Solar Bears defenseman Chad Duchesne before all four players were sent off with roughing minors.
Maine took an even tighter grip on the game early in the third period with a pair of goals in the initial 6:06 of the stanza. The first one came 1:33 in when Master took a feed and drove toward the post to Barone’s left side. Master pulled the puck around Barone’sleft skate and tried to stuff it in. He was unsuccessful but did get the biscuit into the crease where Santos poked it home for his 12th tally of the season.
The backbreaker came four minutes and change later. Mariner Josh Couturier gained control of the puck in his defensive zone. He turned and fed a pass into the neutral zone where Shea took it in. Shea then proceeded to leave three Solar Bears in his wake on a breakaway. He drove straight down the slot and fired a shot into the top corner of the cage over Barone catching glove for his second of the afternoon and sixth of the year.
Just as yet another four-on-four situation came to an end, Orlando finally got onto the board. It came when Dmitry Semykin forced the puck away from a Mariners player below the goal line. Semykin then fed a pass across the front of the Maine net to Boka who slammed a shot home Booth for his 10th of the season and break up Booth’s shutout attempt.
Cameron Askew put the icing on the victory cake for the Mariners with just inside three minutes remaining in regulation. As Barone was coming out for an extra attacker, his teammates had trouble getting the puck into their offensive zone. Standing at the blue line, Askew made the steam and sent the puck down the other way into the empty net for his seventh to close out the scoring.
Despite all the heavy hitting and rough stuff, neither team had an advantage with power plays. Orlando finished the game 0-for-2 with both coming in the first while Maine went 0-for-1 with its man advantage happening midway through the second.
The Solar Bears will head back to Orlando on Monday and have a couple of days off before the Utah Grizzlies come east for a pair of matchups on Thursday, January 27th and Monday, January 31st at the Amway Center.
Contact the author at don.money@prohockeynews.com
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