ORLANDO, FLA – A year ago, South Carolina Stingrays goalie Parker Milner was one the top netminders in the ECHL and expected to carry his team on a deep run into the Kelly Cup playoffs. Then the Orlando Solar Bears and goalie Cal Heeter came along and denied the Stingrays what they wanted, sweeping South Carolina out of the first round.
Wednesday night at the Amway Center, Milner and his teammates began to get a measure of revenge with a classic post-season effort predicated on defense and a backstop who can perform at a high level.
South Carolina goalie Parker Milner (35, white) makes one of his 26 saves while Orlando’s Troy Bourke (2,black) and Stingrays defenseman Matt Nuttle look for a rebound (Photo courtesy of Fernando Medina / Orlando Solar Bears)
Milner stopped all 26 shots he faced and Mason Mitchell scored the game-winner in the second period as the visiting Stingrays took home ice away from the Solar Bears with a 2-0 victory in front of an announced crowd of 6,117. Veteran Josh Gratton scored an empty net shorthanded tally late to put the game away for South Carolina.
Game two of the best-of-seven South Division semifinal series is set for Friday night in Orlando.
“I thought Millsy [Milner] was completely dialed in tonight. He’s been playing playoff-style hockey the last couple of weeks with us trying to get in [the playoffs],” Stingrays Head Coach Spiros Anastas said. “Today he just stepped it up to another level. It was a laser focus for him. He played his angles real well. He was confident and comfortable in the net, didn’t start diving around on grade-A opportunities against [him]. When you’ve got somebody playing that positionally well like that, he gives you the best chance to make those big saves and then [to] turn the puck up north. He was outstanding.”
The battle between Milner and Solar Bears netminder Connor Ingram was simply specatcular. Like Milner, Ingram was almost perfect from a positioning standpoint, stopping all but the one shot by Mitchell to equal his opponent.
Milner’s best period may have been the first. Orlando came out with plenty of fire, trying to catch a Stingrays squad which had been in a life and death fight for their playoff lives with tired legs. Milner was tested 33 seconds in by Solar Bears rookie Dylan Fitze and then a minute later had to face tries by Colby McAuley and Chris LeBlanc. In the first 6:13, Orlando outshot South Carolina 8-2.
The Solar Bears seemed to run out of steam not too long after when Cody Donaghey took a penalty. It allowed the visitors to catch their breath and leveled the ice, leading to a evenly played back half of the frame that ended with the home team outshooting its opponents 15-13 but leaving the scoreboard blank at 0-0.
“I thought we came out and for the first ten minutes I think the shots were 9-2 or something like that (actually it was 11-7). I thought we came out really hard and then we had a penalty that kind of just took the energy away,” Solar Bears Head Coach and General Manager Drake Berehowsky said. “There’s no excuse at this time of year. We have to come ready to play for a full sixty minutes, not just twelve minutes in the first.”
Orlando’s Alex Schoenborn (36, black) battles with South Carolina’s Cameron Heath during Wednesday night’s game (Photo courtesy of Fernando Medina / Orlando Solar Bears)
The Stingrays had the second best penalty killing success rate during the regular season (86.3 percent) and they put that to good use in the second period. South Carolina was hit with three overlapping penalties in the initial 4:03 of the stanza, giving the Solar Bears a pair of short five-on-three man advantages as part of almost six straight minutes of power play time. Not only did the visitors kill off all three calls, they allowed a mere three shots during that time.
Needless to say, the failures were a bit frustrating to the home team and its followers.
“It’s always tough for those guys [on the power play units]. Obviously they’re supposed to help give us momentum and the other team was giving itself momentum by stopping us every time,” Orlando team captain Mike Monfredo said. “We just weren’t shooting enough pucks on net, which really hurt us, but you live and learn and we know what we’ve got to do for the next game.”
The complexion of the game turned when Fitze and South Carolina’s Ryker Killins went to the box with matching minors at 11:32. The ensuing four-on-four allowed the Stingrays to develop what would prove to be the game-winning play. It came when Cam Askew carried the puck into the Orlando end and once gaining the faceoff circle to Ingram’s right, he dropped a pass to a trailing Mitchell. With plenty of room to look and decide what to do. Mitchell ripped a low, hard that skimmed along the ice past the goalie’s left leg pad and into the net.
As the horn sounded to end forty minutes of play, the Solar Bears found themselves down 1-0 but it was a recognizable position. It was only two weeks ago that Orlando was behind by two to the Stingrays up in their building but stormed back to win 3-2 and clinch a playoff berth so being down by one didn’t seem that impossible to overcome.
“I know we’ve come back from [behind] in a couple of games here, like even the Jacksonville game [last weekend]. That’s just coming in the locker room and staying positive and bringing up your teammates,” Orlando forward Mitch Hults said when asked what the discussion was like prior to the final frame. “Even though we go down a goal or two, there’s three periods in a game -just like there’s seven games in a [playoff] series. You’ve just got to go out there and you’ve got to wash that shift, that play away and go out there and do your next one.”
Unfortunately for the Solar Bears, the Stingrays were in no mood to see the events of March 30th replayed. The visitors took the game to the home squad, pinning them down in their defensive end for stretches of time. While it didn’t result in any additional scoring, it did keep the Solar Bears from attacking Milner. Orlando recorded just two shots in the first 9:41 of play and neither one was even close to beating the South Carolina netminder.
Orlando goalie Connor Ingram (51, black jersey) looks around a screen set by South Carolina’s Andrew Cherniwchan during Wednesday night’s game at the Amway Center (Photo courtesy of Fernando Medina / Orlando Solar Bears
“I agree with you. I don’t think we had the urgency all night,” Berehowsky said when asked about the lack of want at the start of the third. “To only put up 26 shots isn’t good enough. We didn’t have any shots or chances from inside the house and maybe three or four all game. That’s not going to win you hockey games.”
Despite having just three shots on the board in the third, Orlando still had a shot to tie things up late. A penalty on Stingrays captain Joey Leach with just under two minutes left in regulation put the Solar Bears on their eighth man advantage of the night. With Ingram pulled for an extra attacker, South Carolina finished off the outcome when a turnover at the blueline allowed Gratton, a veteran presence with NHL playing time on his resume, to collect the puck and score into the empty net.
“I’m not sure if it was a strategy to start sitting back [and playing defensively]Â or obstruct them or slow them down so much. It was moreso making sure our F3 was reloading fast,” Anastas said about the suffocating defense his team played in the latter stages of the game. “We’re a team that believes that typically you’re not going to win a game with just one goal. We still had an offensive mindset – in fact, our defensive game actually elevated because we were harder on the forecheck. Once you’re harder on the forcheck, you’re automatically establishing that defensive position but it was also creating opportunities for us and more offensive zone time. There’s no better defense than keeping it in their zone.”
So now the Solar Bears have to regroup and come out with more effort on Friday. Asked whether a new game plan was needed as well as more sustained energy, Monfredo said that if Orlando can get back to its game and and play more of it, things will fall into place.
Solar Bears forward Mitch Hults (25, black jersey) keeps an eye on South Carolina’s Joey Leach (Photo courtesy of Fernando Medina / Orlando Solar Bears)
“It’s a little bit of both. With some minor tweaks here and there, we kind of had that game plan that we want to stick to,” Monfredo said. “Hopefully we can all buy in for the full sixty minutes instead of little spurts of ten minutes here, five minutes off or two here and two there. We’ll come together, talk about it tomorrow and come out Friday and hopefully put together a full sixty.”
Notes: Final shots were 28-26 in favor of South Carolina… The Solar Bears went 0-for-8 on the power play while the Stingrays finished 0-for-6… Solar Bears forward Mathieu Foget was injured in the first period and did not return to the contest… Friday’s game two is set for a 7 p.m. puck drop. The two teams will then head for North Charleston where game three is scheduled for Wednesday, April 17th.
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