ORLANDO, FLA – In a developmental league like the ECHL, there are bound to be numerous “firsts” during a 72-game season: first professional goals, first goals with a new team, first wins by a goalie,etc. Tuesday night at the Amway Center, the Orlando Solar Bears had a lot of firsts happen for them and the combination proved to be a difference maker.
Led by two goals from Alexy Lipanov and first goals from Jake Jackson, Jimmy Huntington and Jake Marchment, the host Solar Bears (2-3-0-1) coasted to a 6-2 victory over the Jacksonville Icemen (1-2-2-0) in front of a pre-Halloween crowd of 3,649. San Jose prospect Ivan Kosorenkov returned to the scoresheet with a goal and an assist while goalie Spencer Martin made 35 saves as Orlando picked up its second win in three games following an 0-3 start.
Orlando forwards Alexy Lipanov (18, left) and Jake Marchment (27, right) bracket Jacksonville goalie Greffen Outhouse during Tuesday’s first period (Photo courtesy of Fernando Medina / Orlando Solar Bears)
“I didn’t really like our first period and I think we all agree on that,” Orlando Head Coach and General Manager Drake Berehowsky said following the victory. “I think they came out in the second and looked like a new team. [In] the third period I thought we played well until the last ten minutes and then we kind of got a little sloppy again.”
In the wake of both teams playing weekend sets – Jacksonville on the road for a pair in Fort Wayne while Orlando had a home and home with Florida – the short turnaround time to a Tuesday contest left each side looking flat as the game began. The sluggish play led to just a combined eight shots on net (four by both squads) over the first half of the opening frame.
A pair of matching penalties with eight minutes left in the stanza opened up some skating room and the visitors from the River City took advantage. Using a built up head of steam, Icemen forward Max Fortier dashed into the Solar Bears defensive zone and started to circle behind the net. As he did, teammate Chase Lang went to the front of the cage where Fortier fed him the puck. Lang wasted no time, banging it past Martin for his second goal of the season.
Lang’s score was the only one of the initial twenty minutes as Jacksonville netminder Griffen Outhouse held off Orlando’s offense. Outhouse stopped all twelve Solar Bears shots he faced to give his team a slim 1-0 lead at the intermission.
Asked about what was said between periods, Berehowsky said his troops fully recognized that they were not firing on all cylinders in the first – a sign that they are learning.
Orlando’s Brent Pedersen (91, purple) and Jacksonville’s Graeme Craig battle for position during Tuesday night’s game (Photo courtesy of Fernando Medina / Orlando Solar Bears)
“I think the guys knew that they didn’t play as well as they can,” Berehowsky said.
The self-awareness that Berehowsky witnessed in the locker room manifested itself in a heightened level of play in the second. It took the home team just 20 seconds following the puck drop to even the score when at the end of an odd man rush, Kosorenkov stopped on a dime and set up Huntington who ripped a shot past Outhouse for his first professional tally.
Just 67 seconds later, the Solar Bears took control of the contest for good. Defenseman Kevin Lohan started the play with a shot that hot teammate Brent Pedersen. The puck took a long kick out to Jackson who snapped it home for his first pro goal and point.
The score was especially sweet for the rookie since had it not for the AHL San Jose Barracuda recalling forward Marcus Vela from Orlando for the purpose of trading him to Grand Rapids, Jackson would not have played in Tuesday’s game.
“Today I wasn’t supposed to be in the lineup and then there was a trade. I got texted at four o’clock and was told that I was playing,” Jackson, who started the year in the Barracuda preseason training camp before being cut and earning a spot in Orlando, said when asked about staying ready at all times. “You just have to come to the rink ready to go every day in practice. On game days, you just have to prepare like you’re going to play [because] somebody could get sick, somebody could get traded. There’s a lot of movement in this league so you just have to be ready to go.”
The Solar Bears aggressive forechecking game came to the fore at the 4:33 mark of the frame and it was directly responsible for a third score. Pedersen went deep in the Icemen end to try to force the play. He laid a hit on a defender, causing the Jacksonville player to release the puck into the slot area in front of his net. In the blink of an eye Marchment, who is the cousin of former Solar Bear and Toronto prospect Mason Marchment, swooped in and blasted the puck into the netting behind Outhouse for his first goal in an Orlando jersey.
Orlando rookie Jake Jackson (26, center) celebrates his first professional with Mike Monfredo (3, left) and Colby McAuley (85) during Tuesday’s second period (Photo courtesy of Fernando Medina / Orlando Solar Bears)
The teams went back and forth for much of the rest of the period. Things got amped up when with just over six minutes left in the middle stanza, Orlando’s Colby McAuley and Jacksonville’s Mitch Jones dropped the gloves for a spirited fight that reawakened the crowd.
As the period was coming to a close, the Solar Bears tacked a fourth goal on for good measure. It came when defenseman Taylor Doherty sent a long pass up the boards to Kosorenkov. The San Jose prospect turned on the jets and sped into the Jacksonville end of the ice where he beat Outhouse with a shot high over the left shoulder with only 2.5 seconds to go before the intermission. For Kosorenkov, it was his first goal since netting a pair in the season opener.
“We kind of figured it out in the second period. We stuck to the system. We were playing fast, chipping pucks and beating their defensemen wide and getting to the net,” Jackson said about the middle frame explosion. “I think that’s the biggest difference. We’ve got to play fast.”
Jacksonville opened up the final frame by pulling one goal closer. Just one minute and six seconds in, Alexis D’Aoust was in the right place to redirect a floater from the point by Hayden Shaw past Martin for his second of the year.
The burst of energy provided by the goal continued into a four-on-four situation a couple of minutes later. Martin had one of his best sequences during that time, making three saves on shots from in close in the space of a few seconds to keep the Icemen from getting a third score.
Up to that point in the game, the Solar Bears power play had been quiet. Looking to keep their skates on the pedal, the home team found just what they needed out of Tampa prospect Lipanov. The 21-year old from Moscow revisited the form that caught the eye of Orlando fans late last season when he took a cross-ice pass from Mike Monfredo and drilled a one-timer past Outhouse.
“I saw the line [passing lane] and it was wide open. We [he and Monfredo] made eye contact and he just passed it to me,” Lipanov said when asked about how the play set up. “I think it’s easy when you pass to each other and play simple and fast, you can score more goals.”
The Monfredo-to-Lipanov connection was not quite done. During another man advantage with just over eight minutes left in regulation, Monfredo had the puck along the boards with McAuley cutting through the faceoff circle and Lipanov in the slot. Monfredo’s feed was redirected by McAuley to Lipanov who skated in and buried the puck in the twine for his second of the night and the game’s final tally.
Orlando forward Ivan Kosorenkov (10, purple) tries to rush past Jacksonville’s Charles-David Beaudoin during Tuesday’s game(Photo courtesy of Fernando Medina / Orlando Solar Bears)
“We just started executing. We put on a unit and they started firing the puck. In order to score – and I know a lot of people might disagree with me – you’ve got to shoot the puck,” Berehowsky said about his team’s man advantage success in the contest. “Those back door and seam plays – I know that’s supposedly the new rage – but the old fashioned way still works with shooting the puck and getting rebounds.”
The Solar Bears are now off until Sunday when the South Carolina Stingrays return to the City Beautiful after having already beaten Orlando twice. Asked about what the Bears have to do between now and then to maintain the level of play from Tuesday’s final two periods, Lipanov had a pretty simple answer.
“We have to keep going, keep practicing every day, working hard,” he said. “We have 72 games [to play during the season]. That’s a lot of games so we have to keep going, keep pushing and keep playing our game.”
Notes: Final shots were 37-33 in favor of Jacksonville… The Solar Bears went 2-for-5 on the power play while the Icemen were 0-for-4… Orlando improved its record against Jacksonville at the Amway Center to 12-0-0-0… Marchment’s goal was his 50th professional tally… Monfredo picked up his 150th pro assist on Lipanov’s first score… Based on transactions reported by the AHL and the official release on the San Jose – Grand Rapids trade, the Solar Bears are expected to have defenseman Marcus Crawford and forward Artem Ivanyuzhenkov joining them in the next few days… Sunday’s puck drop at the Amway Center against South Carolina is set for 3 p.m.
Contact the author at don.money@prohockeynews.com
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