ORLANDO, FLA – On Monday night, the Orlando Solar Bears had a big lead over the South Carolina Stingrays as the third period began, only to see it whittled down to one before the visitors could find the equalized. Tuesday night, the roles were reversed but the end result of a comeback coming up short repeated itself.
Despite two goals from defenseman Nolan Valleau and multiple point nights from Brady Shaw and Colby McAuley, the host Solar Bears (1-2-0-0) could not get the job done, falling to the Stingrays (1-2-0-0) by a final of 6-5. Grant Besse, Jonathan Charbonneau and Matt Pohlkamp led the visitors with a goal and an assist each.
“I wasn’t happy with the way we played. I wasn’t happy with our effort. I thought we were undisciplined at the start,” Orlando Head Coach and General Manager Drake Berehowsky said following the contest. “We have to simplify our game. We’re trying to complicate it and that’s going to be part of the learning process for everyone. We’ve just got to learn to keep the game simple because when we do, we have success.”
Slow starts have been an early theme and Tuesday night was true to that form. Just 37 seconds after the opening faceoff, Besse was given space and he rifled a shot that beat Solar Bears rookie goalie Corbin Boes, who was making his inaugural professional start. The score was Besse’s second of the season.
South Carolina was able to push its plan of shooting from everywhere, amassing an 11-3 shot advantage through the first six minutes and change. Had it not been for an early Solar Bears power play where they recorded all three shots, it might have been a washout for the home team.
“The past two nights, we’ve kind of been done in by slow starts,” Shaw said. “We have to find a way to manage our emotions and kind of get the energy level up on the bench and kind of create our own so that we’re not coming out as slow.”
The visitors held control until Orlando found a way to get on the board late in the opening frame. With just under three minutes left in the period, Brent Pedersen got the puck to the front of the net where Alexandre Ranger deflected it on net. Stingrays goalie Parker Milner made the save but left a rebound where Valleau could get it and send the puck home for his first of the year.
South Carolina answered right back when Pohlkamp set up Mike Chen who netted his first of the season just as Orlando began a power play. Not to be outdone, Shaw picked up his second as a Solar Bear a minute later when he cleaned up the rebound of a shot by teammate Mike Monfredo to send the teams to the intermission tied at two.
As good as the Solar Bears had been in Monday’s second period where they tallied three goals, they were that bad in the middle frame on Tuesday. Carrying a power play into the middle frame, the Stingrays went back in front 47 ticks in when Charbonneau snapped a wicked wrist shot past a completely screened Boes for his first of the new season.
Charbonneau’s score came on South Carolina’s first shot of the middle period. It’s second shot was just as deadly as Pohlkamp got behind the Orlando defense and sent a backhander sailing past the knob of Boes’ stick into the top corner. The goal was Pohlkamp’s first and it gave his team a two-goal lead less than five minutes into the frame.
South Carolina upped the margin to 5-2 at the 12:40 mark when Sam Fioretti converted the rebound of a shot by Tim Davison during a power play for his first. Jake Kamrass then capped the big period for the Stingrays when he collected another Davison rebound and netted his third goal in as many games with 1:03 to go before the break to make it 6-2.
Asked about what he thought was causing the defensive play to need fixing, Berehowsky – a former NHL defenseman himself – was quick to identify the issues.
“I think we’ve just got to engage more. We watch video and the sealouts weren’t very good. We were getting beat back to the net,” Berehowsky said. “These are habits that are formed over time. It’s going to take time to break them and for them to learn new habits. They want to stare at the puck instead of just taking care of their guy and not worrying about someone else’s job. Just do your job and if they can learn to do that then we’ll be able to box out and the goalies will be able to see pucks better and we’ll have some success.”
Valleau, one of the handful of returning players from last year, said that the team found a renewed resolve during the intermission, drawing on its fans for inspiration.
“It’s a special thing to play in Orlando and play at home so we kind of said let’s not take this for granted. We’re trying to do this for the fans and everybody who is at the games so we’re not going to just roll over and accept this as a result,” he explained. “We kind of ralliedandtried to make a game out of it.”
Early in the third, the Solar Bears were bit by the penalty bug again but this time it was big. Defenseman Etienne Boutet leveled Besse along the boards in front of the South Carolina bench. Besse got up but was wobbly and the officials tagged Boutet with a five-minute charging major and a game misconduct. The Stingrays could have put the game away but Orlando’s penalty killers stepped up and held off the visitors.
Buoyed by the kill, the Solar Bear went to the man advantage shortly thereafter and Valleau used a screen by Hunter Fejes to float a shot past Milner (44 saves) for his second of the night. Five minutes later, some nifty tic-tac-toe passing from Shaw to Alex Schoenborn to McAuley ended with McAuley’s third goal in two nights to trim the margin to 6-4.
With six and a half minutes left in regulation, Orlando again went on the power play and again it found a way to score. McAuley made the key play, threading a pass to Fejes who went in alone and ripped a shot into the top corner to Milner’s stick side for his second special teams tally in three games to cut the Stingrays lead to one.
The Solar Bears got one final power play with 1:47 to go, pulling Boes (35 saves) to create a two-man advantage. At the time they were sitting on 49 shots on net and that was where they stayed as South Carolina tightened up and held on for its first win of the year.
Despite the loss, Shaw said the effort the team gave in the third period was a major positive.
“It’s a loss [but] it doesn’t feel as disheartening I would say. [There] were a lot of good things in the third,” he said. “It showed what we could do if we dug in and played the right way and got everybody on board.”
Notes: Final shots were 49-41 Orlando… The Stingrays were 2-for-6 on the power play while the Solar Bears went 2-for-9… Attendance was posted as 3,187… Pedersen (1 goal, 3 assists) and Fejes (2 goals, 2 assists) both extended their point streaks to three games and joined McAuley (3 goals, 1 assist) at the top of the team’s scoring lead… Several changes in scoring made after Monday’s game led to Pedersen losing a goal (which was credited to Boutet) while adding an assist to the rookie’s numbers, an assist being added for Fejes and Monfredo as well as a scoring change giving a goal to South Carolina’s Christian Horn (originally credited to Joey Leach)… Orlando makes its first trip outside of the City Beautiful this weekend with road games at Jacksonville on Friday and Atlanta on Saturday.
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