BRAMPTON, ONT – For most of this current road trip, the Orlando Solar Bears have used defense and goaltending to pick up wins. Friday night, the Solar Bears let the offense do the talking.
The number one line of Rylan Schwartz, T.J. Foster and Patrick Watling combined for three goals and nine points to lead Orlando (27-23-3-5, 62 points) to a 6-3 win over the Brampton Beast (16-31-7-4, 43 points) in front of an announced crowd of 2,882 at the Powerade Centre in Brampton. The victory allowed the Solar Bears to move within two points of ninth place Wheeling in the ECHL’s Eastern conference and just three points out of the eighth playoff spot currently held by Atlanta.
The six goals matched a season high for Orlando as well as being the most goals the team has scored in a game since February 14th. The six tallies were spread among five different players with Schwartz scoring twice.
The host Beast were much more aggressive at the start of Friday’s contest than they were on Thursday. Aided by an early power play, Brampton tested Orlando goalie Rob Madore multiple times. The pressure also allowed the Beast defense to keep the Solar Bears in check as the visitors’ first shot on netminder Kenny Reiter came 7:40 into the opening period.
Special teams played a role in the first two goals of the game. The opening score was a short-handed tally by one time Solar Bear Nick McParland who took a feed from Tim Billingsley and broke away. He made a head fake and beat Madore for his sixth goal of the season at the 13:48 mark of the first.
Billingsley took a penalty not too long after and it cost his team dearly. During the man advantage, Orlando rookie Jack Rodewald made a centering pass that hit the skate of a Brampton defender and bounced past Reiter for a power play score. For Rodewald, it was his 14th goal of the season.
Late in the frame, the Solar Bears took the lead for good thanks to a heads-up play by veteran forward Nicklas Lindberg. Knowing linemate Brady Vail’s skating abilities, Lindberg lobbed a pass toward the neutral zone that landed behind the Beast defense. Vail caught up with the pass and broke in alone, beating Reiter with a backhander to the top corner of the net for his 18th of the year.
Unlike Thursday, the middle frame Friday night was calm in the scoring category with just one goal being produced. It came off the stick of Schwartz who took a feed from Foster at the end of an odd-man rush and deposited it into the net for his 14th since coming to the City Beautiful.
The Solar Bears pushed their lead to three early in the third. After successfully killing off the remaining time from a late penalty in the second, Schwartz sent Foster and Watling away on a two-on-one break. Using Watling as a decoy, Foster froze the defender and Reiter (20 saves) before firing a shot home for his 21st of the year.
After Jeff Brown redirected a Billingsley shot past Madore (24 saves) for his 11th at the 3:15 mark, Lindberg (4th) and Schwartz (15th) lit the goal light two minutes apart midway through the stanza to increase the margin to 6-2.
David Ling drew the home team within three with his third of the season in the final minute but by then the outcome had been decided.
Brampton outshot Orlando in the game by a final count of 27-26. The Solar Bears went 1-for-5 on the power play while the Beast were shutout in five opportunities with the man advantage.
After a day off on Saturday, the two teams will complete their series with a game Sunday afternoon at 2 pm.
Contact the author at Don.money@prohockeynews.com
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