ORLANDO, FLA – Since Drake Berehowsky took over as the new head coach of the Orlando Solar Bears, the line of Joe Perry, Brett Findlay and Denver Manderson has been red hot when it comes to scoring but what if that combo was having an off day or the opposition figured out a way to slow them down? That is where the idea of a balanced offensive attack comes in and on Thanksgiving day, fans of the Solar Bears were thankful that their team understands the concept.
Patrick Watling (47, purple) scored twice in Orlando’s win over Brampton Thursday (Photo courtesy of Gary Bassing / Orlando Solar Bears)
Led by Patrick Watling, who scored two goals, and rookie Mason Marchment’s first professional score, Orlando (8-5-2-0, 18 points) defeated the visiting Brampton Beast (7-4-1-2, 17 points) 4-2 in front of an announced holiday crowd of 3,368 at the Amway Center. Goalie Ryan Massa backed up his teammates with a solid 32-save effort to earn his sixth win of the season.
Watling and linemates Tony Cameranesi (goal and an assist) and Eric Faille (two assists) accounted for six of the Solar Bears’ nine points in the contest while Marchment’s goal was the game winner. Additionally, defensemen Taylor Doherty and Nik Brouillard chipped in with an assist each.
“We won’t categorize them as second and third lines. All of our lines are great lines,” Berehowsky said. “I think we have great depth. I think [on our] defense, we have great depth. All the line get to play. We roll them and they all have the ability to score and they also have the ability to defend.”
The last time a pro hockey team based in Canada took to the ice in the City Beautiful, the Quebec Rafales took on the IHL incarnation of the Solar Bears in January of 1998. On that day the visitors lost 8-2, a fate that appeared ready to befall the Beast based on the way the first period played out.
The Solar Bears took it to Brampton throughout much of the opening frame, piling up shots on Beast netminder Zach Fucale. Two of those shots were directly involved in the opening goal of the game. Just two minutes in, Cameranesi drilled a shot on net from Fucale’s left that the goalie stopped. He could not control the rebound and Watling was there to bang it into the back of the net for his third score of the season.
Most of the rest of the frame played out with Fucale keeping his team within striking distance while Massa was was tested a couple of times and kept making the big saves. One of Massa’s best saves came when he flashed out his right skate to detour a shot by Chris Auger just past the outside of the post with less than four minutes left in the period.
A late power play gave the Solar Bears an opportunity to extend the margin and they did so thanks to Watling. This time it was Faille who made a perfect pass on the back end of a give-and-go to Watling who flipped the puck past Fucale for his second of the game with 41.9 seconds left before the intermission.
“The first one was just a good play with me, Faillesy and Cam had a good three going. We knew that we had the speed to beat those defensemen. We just threw it to the net and I was right there to tap in the rebound,” Watling said when asked to describe his two goals. “The second one was a very good play to be honest. Breakout, tic-tac-toe, we planned that – it was everything in the book and Faillesy feeding me back door again with a wide open net.”
Brampton, which had won six of its previous ten games coming into Thursday’s game, regrouped during the break and opened the second period determined to close the gap. The Beast did just that, scoring 42 seconds into the frame when Brandon MacLean was in the slot and redirected a shot by Mike Vernace past a surprised Massa for his sixth of the season.
Orlando continued to hang onto the lead thanks to its netminder until the 11:33 mark of the period when the visitors pulled even. It came off of an offensive zone face-off that Luc-Olivier Blain won. Blain started toward the net with MacLean alongside and slipped a pass to his teammate who roofed a shot just under the crossbar from in close for MacLean’s second of the night.
“We just let our foot off the gas a little. We just needed to reconvene, take it back a little, calm ourselves down and pick it back up,” Watling said about the lapses in the middle frame. “That’s what we did in the third.”
It took a bit of time for either team to escape the defensive shadow of their opponents in the final twenty minutes. Things began to pickup after the midpoint of the period as both squads knew that the next goal would be a big one and it was.
With a little over five minutes left in regulation, the Beast made a mistake with the puck in the neutral zone. That error became huge when Marchment, son of former NHL player Bryan Marchment, grabbed it and busted into the Brampton end. Marchment saw an opening to his left and skated for it, creating enough room to let loose with a snap shot off his left skate that beat Fucale short side for his first goal as a professional.
As time wound down, Brampton head coach Colin Chaulk pulled Fucale (33 saves) in favor of an extra attacker with 2:07 left. Although the Beast did get some offensive zone time, it was the Solar Bears who took advantage when Faille set up Cameranesi for a goal into the vacated net. The score was the rookie’s fourth of the year and capped the scoring.
With two more games against Brampton on Saturday and next Monday (both games starting at 7 p.m.), Berehowsky said that he is looking forward to seeing how his Solar Bears handle the very skilled Beast.
“They have a great team. They’ve got a lot of scoring power but we have a great team as well,” he said. “It’s going to be a battle. There’s going to be many ebbs and flows but as long as we come out and we keep competing and we can withstand those bottom of the hill things, we’ll be okay.”
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