ESTERO, FLA – Buoyed by a two-game dismantling of the Greenville Swamp Rabbits, the Orlando Solar Bears headed into a three-game set with the Florida Everblades looking to scratch out a confidence-boosting win against their arch-nemesis. Getting goalie Clint Windsor back from the AHL’s Syracuse Crunch only added to the feeling that Wednesday would be a night where the Solar Bears could run their winning streak at Hertz Arena to two games.
There was only one problem: keeping the Everblades offense from scoring while being able to fill Florida’s net with goals.
The host Everblades (17-5-0-1) scored twice in the second period to break a tie and hung on to defeat the Solar Bears (11-9-1-0) by a final of 3-2 in front of a COVID-restricted crowd of 2,835. Everblades netminder Devin Cooley outdueled Windsor, making 26 saves to give his team a chance to win.
Windsor, playing in his first game action since January 9th, showed few signs of rust. He made 30 saves on 33 shots to keep Orlando in the game. Tristin Langan and Aaron Luchuk each scored once but it was not enough to overcome the Everblades opportunistic offense.
The eleventh meeting between the two in-state rivals (out of what will be a total of 27 by the end of the season) started with Orlando’s Windsor being the focal point. He was ready when he needed to be early in the first period as the Everblades came out firing. In one quick stretch of 24 seconds, the Solar Bears netminder turned away a break-in by Alex Kile following by a series of three tries – one by Matt Petgrave and two by Marcus Vela – in a span of six seconds.
Two minutes after Windsor saved his teammates bacon, they rewarded him with a goal. At the 6:41 mark, Luchuk made a brilliant stretch pass off the boards to Langan who got behind the Everblades defense. Langan streaked in and beat Cooley between the legs for his fourth goal of the season to make it 1-0 in favor of the visitors.
Late in the frame, the Everblades got their revenge. Most of the work was done by Stefan LeBlanc, who took the puck from Cody Sol and began skating around in the Solar Bears defensive zone. He took off to his left and as the Orlando defense collapsed to clog up the slot and shooting lanes, LeBlanc swooped through the faceoff circle and cut straight to the crease. Once there, LeBlanc scooped a backhander up and over Windsor’s shoulder for his second of the year to tie the score at 1-1.
Florida, which had outscored its opponents 30-21 in the second period, added to those numbers with the next two tallies. First, at the 6:21 point, the Everblades turned a quick transition into an odd man rush into the Orlando end. Vela carried the puck in and dropped a pass to Kile who was trailing. Kile then whipped a pass to Luke Nogard who was wide open in the left side faceoff circle. Nogard wasted no time in firing a shot that went into the top right corner of the cage for his third and a lead that the home team would never relinquish.
Seven minutes later, Windsor made a mistake by playing the puck up the far boards where it was pounced on by the Everblades’ Mason Mitchell. Mitchell circled behind the net and centered a pass to Michael Huntebrinker who used his skates to control the puck before going blocker side on the netminder for his team and league-leading 13th goal to double the lead to 3-1.
The Solar Bears needed a response and used some thievery of their own to do so. With just under five minutes to go before the second intermission, Langan made a steal along the boards in the near side corner. He turned and threaded a pass to the low slot. Luchuk got to it first and beat Cooley for his fifth to cut the Orlando deficit to 3-2 at the break.
Orlando pushed hard to open the third and nearly found the equalizer. A Solar Bears player put the puck on net from an angle and Cooley steered it away. The puck headed to the back side where Michael Prapavessis was skating into what looked to be a sure goal but Cooley stretched across and either got a piece of the shot or it got just enough of the iron to deflect away.
The teams went back and forth for most of the frame with nothing to show for their efforts. Orlando pulled Windsor with two minutes remaining hoping to find a way to send the game to overtime. A bang-bang set of chances by Luchuk and Tyler Bird with half a minute remaining were denied by Cooley, ensuring the Everblades of yet another win over the boys from Central Florida.
The two teams will have Thursday off before meeting again Friday night at Hertz Arena at 7:30 p.m. followed by a trek up Interstates 75 and 4 to the City Beautiful for a Saturday night matchup at the Amway Center at 7 p.m.
Notes: The final shots were 33-28 in favor of Florida… Neither team connected on the power play as the Solar Bears were 0-for-3 while the Everblades were 0-for-1… With the victory, Florida now has seven straight games with a point (6-0-0-1)… The Solar Bears’ Windsor picked up an assist on Langan’s goal, the first helper on an Orlando goal since Connor Ingram collected an assist on April 4, 2019 on Colby McAuley’s overtime game-winner against Atlanta… Orlando’s Langan (1 goal, 5 assists) and Luchuk (2 goals, 2 assists) extended their point streaks to three games… The Solar Bears are now 3-7-1-0 against the Everblades this season.
Contact the author at don.money@prohockeynews.com
Follow us on Twitter @prohockeynews
You must be logged in to post a comment.