ORLANDO, FLA – Anyone who takes a look at the roster for the Orlando Solar Bears can easily see who the players most likely to score are. So can opponents who use that information to design game plans to defend against those key players. That is when a team approach – specifically getting scoring from unexpected sources – comes in handy.
Saturday night, defenseman Carl Nielsen was the unlikely hero, scoring the game-winning goal as the Solar Bears edged the Reading Royals 5-4 at the Amway Center. The victory allowed Orlando (36-23-6-4, 82 points) to pull within one point of clinching a playoff berth for the second consecutive season.
Brett Findlay and Marshall Everson each scored two goals and goalie Garret Sparks stopped 42 of 46 shots for the Solar Bears, offsetting a hat trick by Reading’s Adam Hughesman. Still, it was Nielsen’s third goal of the season that drew the buzz and the adoration of the majority of the 8,033 fans in the building and thousands more watching at home on local TV.
“As a defenseman, you don’t get many of those (game-winning goal opportunities),” Nielsen said.
Nielsen’s score was nearly as improbable as the man who scored it. With Orlando in the middle of a line change, he carried the puck through center ice. His natural instinct told him to make a pass to Brady Vail who was on his right. When the three Royals defenders back on the play cut that option off, Nielsen saw a lane and shot instead. Before Reading goalie Martin Ouellette knew what happened, the puck was past him and the crowd erupted.
“I used the d-man as a screen and luckily for us it went in tonight,” he said.
The game almost became a disaster for the home team before it was four minutes old. Hughesman struck for two of his goals in the first 3:50 of the opening period. Findlay started the comeback at the 5:07 mark when he used his speed to get around the Royals’ defense and slipped a shot between Ouellette’s legs.
Two minutes after Hughesman missed a chance for his third tally of the period on a penalty shot (ironically caused by a hook from Nielsen), Everson batted the rebound of a Brock Montgomery shot out of mid-air and in during an Orlando power play. He then gave the Solar Bears the lead by redirecting a Bryce Aneloski shot past Ouellette in the final minute of the frame.
Hughesman did complete his hat trick late in the second period, launching a shot from near the boards to Sparks’ right that somehow eluded the goalie’s clutches. It was the only one of Reading’s twelve shot in the stanza that went in while Orlando’s offense mustered just one shot in the frame.
When Olivier Labelle scored on an odd-man rush 7:49 into the third, the Royals (44-19-4-2, 94 points) had the lead again. Findlay came to the rescue one more time, converting the rebound of a Jake Cepis shot into the game-tying goal and setting the stage for Nielsen’s tally two minutes later.
“Obviously it wasn’t the start we wanted (going down by two early). We showed a lot of grit coming back,” Findlay said. “It shows the resiliency we have on this team. I think if we keep working together like that for a full sixty minutes, we’re going to be a tough team to play against.”
Orlando now has three games left in which to sew up a trip to the post-season. All three games starting Thursday night are against the division-leading Florida Everblades – the team the Solar Bears would most likely face in the first round. Nielsen, a former Everblade himself, said that although the goal is to clinch a playoff spot, those final games will have plenty of message-sending moments.
“It’ll be interesting to see what lineups are out there – what Florida’s going to do, who they’re going to put out there,” he said. “It’s a ten-game playoff series against them essentially at this point. Give us them ten times and I think we’ll come out on top more times than not. The fans will get a little preview of what the series is going to look like.”
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