ORLANDO, FLA – Just five months ago, goalie Martin Ouellette was hearing the catcalls from Orlando Solar Bears fans as he was leading the Florida Everblades to a playoff series victory over the Solar Bears. In the eyes of the Amway Center crowd, he was public enemy number one.
Orlando’s Brent Pedersen (center) celebrates his first period goal with Mathieu Foget (left) and Tayler Thompson (Photo courtesy of Fernando Medina / Orlando Solar Bears)
Friday night, he became arguably the most loved Solar Bear of this year’s crop.
Ouellette made 28 saves to pick up his second consecutive win as Orlando (3-3-0-0) blanked the hated Everblades (2-3-0-0) 3-0 in front of an announced crowd of 6,365. Brent Pedersen, Brady Shaw and Michael Brodzinski each contributed a goal as the Solar Bears won for the second straight game.
For Ouellette, the shutout was his 12th professional white washing, ten of them coming in the ECHL. Four of those came a year ago but the only one the fans in Central Florida cared about was the one they witnessed Friday against their in-state rival.
“I tried to take it as another game, get ready and do the same routine and treat it as another game,” Ouellette said following the game. “Obviously it was fun to play my old team and get the win.”
Still playing with his Everblades-painted mask while he waits for a new one to arrive, Ouellette was looking to double up on his performance in last Saturday’s win over Atlanta where he allowed just one goal. It helped immensely when his offense kicked in with a pair of tallies before the first period was halfway done.
At the 6:47 mark of the opening frame, the Solar Bears went on a forechecking spree in the Florida end and it paid off well. The key play came from Mathieu Foget, who was acquired by Orlando from the Everblades just over a week ago, when he forced a turnover deep in the corner. He wheeled around and quickly sent a pass to the front of the net where Pedersen took it and beat goalie Jamie Phillips for his second of the season.
“Coach is preaching hard forechecks and I forechecked the defenseman hard. A couple guys before that hit the defenseman so I think he thought I was coming to hit him so he coughed it up,” Foget said. “I got it and I saw Pedersen in front and I kind of threw it at him and he made a good play and banged it in.”
Less than three minutes later, another newcomer to the Orlando lineup announced his presence with a heads-up play. Mitch Hults, who was assigned to the Solar Bears from Syracuse by the Tampa Bay Lightning, beat a defender to a puck rimming around the boards below the goal line. First on the puck, Hults made a quick back pass to Hunter Fejes who was coming behind the net behind him. Fejes had enough room and time to spot Shaw in front with a pass and Shaw went to Phillips’ stick side for his third of the year and a two goal lead.
Solar Bears forward Brady Shaw (left) celebrates his first period goal with teammates Hunter Fejes during Friday night’s win (Photo courtesy of Fernando Medina / Orlando Solar Bears)
Hults, who has 62 career AHL games with 11 goals and 29 points in those contests under his belt, said the play was just a small example of what can happen when teammates are in sync.
“Their defense made a kind of a cycle down and what I did was I cut off that defenseman using my body. I saw Fejes down low so I just tapped it down to him. It was a tic-tac-toe play and then he hit Shawsy in front,” Hults said. “It was nice to get a line point like that. It’s nice to build off that as well, especially with your linemates. I think [that] as we keep playing on, we’ll know where people are going to be and kind of who we play with each other.”
The rest of the period, and for that matter the game, belonged to Ouellette and his teammates. Late in the first, overlapping penalties gave the Everblades 38 seconds of a five-on-three man advantage as part of a 3:23 stretch of power play time. The Solar Bears killed off the time expertly, allowing just two shots that Ouellette handled.
Thanks to two power plays of their own, the Solar Bears controlled play in the second period but Phillips, who spent last year bouncing between Manitoba in the AHL and Jacksonville in the ECHL, rebounded to put in a solid frame. He saw twelve shots and stopped them all, matching Ouellette’s four saves in the period to post a clean sheet.
Early in the third, Ouellette showed just how locked in he was when he flashed his left leg out to deny a shot by Florida’s David Friedmann. The Everblades cranked up their offense but the Solar Bears netminder was in the same kind of zone that saw him post 33 wins a year ago. The visitors controlled play, firing off 12 shots but none of them could penetrate the wall that Ouellette had errected in front of his net.
Orlando’s Trevor Olson (center) battles for position with Florida’s Tommy Thompson (Photo courtesy of Fernando Medina / Orlando Solar Bears)
Florida pulled Phillips (20 saves) for an extra attacker with less than two minutes left but the Orlando defense dug its heels in, blocking shots, clearing loose pucks and doing everything that could to preserve the shutout. Bridzinski put the final nail in the Everblades coffin when he lofted the puck out of his defensive zone and it slid its way into the empty net as two Florida tried to chase it down to no avail. For Brodzinski, it was his second goal of the season.
With the win, the Solar Bears won back-to-back games for the first time this season, allowing just one goal in the process. For Head Coach and General Manager Drake Berehowsky, Friday’s victory was a total team effort – one that he hopes to see a repeat of Saturday night when the teams meet again down in Hertz Arena in Estero.
“I think everybody played well. We had five guys on the ice playing defense. We weren’t taking swings. We were stopping in the house and protecting the inside of the ice,” Berehowsky said. “They have a good team and Marty played a great game and we’ve got to get ready for another challenge tomorrow.”
Notes: Final shots were 28-23 in favor of Florida… Netither team had any success on the power play as the Everblades went 0-for-4 and the Solar Bears 0-for-2… Fejes’ assist extended his point streak to six games (5 goals, 3 assists) while Brodzinski ( 3 games), Pedersen and Foget (2 games) moved streaks along… Orlando defenseman Etienne Boutet played in his 100th professional game… Saturday night’s puck drop is scheduled for 7 p.m.
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