Rylan Schwartz scored Orlando’s lone goal Thursday night (Photo courtesy of F. Medina & G. Bassing/Orlando Solar Bears)
ORLANDO, FLA – Playing games in your own building is usually a comfortable prospect since familiar surroundings generate a certain amount of ease. It also helps if the home team wins more games than they lose.
Thursday night, the Orlando Solar Bears had hoped to regain their swagger at the Amway Center. What the announced crowd of 5,281 got was another frustrating evening as the Manchester Monarchs (27-12-1-4, 59 points) downed the host Solar Bears 3-1. A three goal second period by the visitors and two disallowed goals in the third period doomed Orlando (17-18-2-3, 39 points) to its third straight loss.
Only a late power play goal by Rylan Schwartz kept the Solar Bears from being shut out for the second straight night by the East division leading Monarchs. As it was, Orlando went an astounding 170:55 between Jack Rodewald’s first period goal last Friday against Florida and Schwartz’ marker with 1:18 left on Thursday.
“I thought tonight we did a much better job of taking it there [to the net] and just trying to score ugly and dirty. That’s what you have to do,” Solar Bears head coach Anthony Noreen said. “Unfortunately two of those get called back where we did a good job of driving it to the net and trying to force it in there rather than make a pretty play or a cute play. I thought it took us a little bit to figure that out.”
After a fairly evenly played scoreless first period, things got rocky for the home team in the second.
It began when Mark Louis took a tripping penalty that led to Manchester’s Alex Guptill collected the rebound of a tip by Danick Paquette and shoveled it past Orlando goalie Rob Madore for his eleventh goal.
Four minutes later, Joe Diamond slid a pass to the top of the crease where Derek Arnold out worked two Orlando defenders to score his twelfth of the year. When Mark Anthoine took a feed from Gasper Kopitar and sniped a shot over Madore’s shoulder at the 13:23 mark, the visitors were up by three and the home team was in trouble.
“The first period I thought we checked really well. I thought we did a really good job – it was [a] pretty uneventful period,” Noreen said. “There were times in the second period where I think there were a lot of things that we needed to clean up.”
The Solar Bears buckled down as the third period began and took the game to the Monarchs. Thanks to a slew of Manchester penalties, Orlando began pressing Monarchs netminder Doug Carr who was aiming for his first shutout of the season.
As if trying to beat Carr (39 saves) was not bad enough, even when they appeared to score, the Solar Bears were denied. With about seven minutes left, Johnny McInnis looked to have converted a loose puck into a goal but referee Nic Leduc lost sight of the puck and blew his whistle before McInnis put it in.
Then about three minutes later, Erik Bradford tried a wraparound that Carr got his leg pad on. Bradford continued to whack and push at the puck before it finally snuck over the goal line. Once again Leduc, who was on the opposite side of the net from the play, ruled that the puck was tied up and he had blown the play dead.
Orlando’s fourth man advantage of the final frame finally paid off when Nicklas Lindberg threaded a cross-ice pass to Schwartz who went top corner for his eighth goal since joining the team. Eric Faille, who had just come back from a callup to the Toronto Marlies, also picked up an assist on the goal. It was too little too late however as Carr and the Monarchs held Orlando off the rest of the way.
Madore finished the game with 29 saves in suffering the loss.
The teams will finish their trio of games Friday night at the Amway Center.
Contact the author at Don.money@prohockeynews.com
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