ESTERO, FL – On Friday night, the Orlando Solar Bears put in a solid effort in taking down the South division leading Florida Everblades in Orlando. Saturday night, the Solar Bears wanted to repeat that effort when they pulled into Germain Arena for the back end of a home-and-home to close out the 2017 part of their schedule.
Maybe it was the bus ride made longer by holiday traffic or maybe it was the afterglow of two consecutive wins at home but Orlando did not look like the same team on the Everblades home ice.
Led by two goals from Stephen MacAulay and multi-point nights from six others, the host Everblades (22-5-1-2, 47 points) got their revenge in the form of a 7-1 victory over the Solar Bears (13-15-4-1, 31 points) in front of an announced crowd of 6,533. Joe Perry picked up the lone Orlando goal in the contest.
Coming off Friday’s win and with the addition of Martins Dzierkals back into the lineup, Orlando hoped to replicate the start it had the night before. Florida, playing with an edge after losing to its in-state rival, had other ideas and took the game to the visitors from the get go. It took just 6:21 of playing time in the first period for the Everblades to take control when Zack Kamrass took a drop pass from Michael Kirkpatrick in the Solar Bears end and drilled a shot through traffic high to the glove side of Orlando goalie Mackenzie Skapski for his second tally of the season.
Skapski, who was outstanding on Friday, held his team in the contest early with some huge saves including a pad save on Kirkpatrick on an odd-man rush and a blocker stop moments later.
With the teams playing four-on-four late in the opening period, John McCarron had room to skate the puck into the offensive zone and ripped a shot from almost the same spot as Kamrass with the same result. The shot beat Skapski’s glove hand again,this time for McCarron’s ninth and a 2-0 Everblades lead. That was where the scoreboard stayed into the intermission despite the fact that Florida outshot Orlando in the frame by a count of 13-2.
Smelling blood on the ice, the Everblades quickly extended their lead in the second period. Just 50 seconds in, MacAulay used his speed to beat two Orlando defenders before scoring his 15th of the season. Less than five minutes later, the margin ballooned to 4-0 when during a five-on-three man advantage, MacAulay was in the right spot to convert the rebound of a shot by Nelson Armstrong for his second of the game.
Needing to do something to try to light a fire under his team, Solar Bears head coach Drake Berehowsky removed Skapski from the contest and replaced him with Gordon Defiel, who was signed to replace Cal Heeter who is on a callup to AHL Toronto after posting an 8-0-1 record with SPHL Pensacola.
The move did little to fix the Solar Bears woes as the Everblades connected for a fifth tally at the 8:36 mark. It came when Tyler Ganly banged home the rebound of a shot by Nolan LaPorte for his first score of the campaign and a 5-0 lead for the home team.
The frustrations of the Solar Bears players, added to the normal animosity between the two teams, began to spill over when Orlando captain Sean Zimmerman tangled with Florida’s Clark Seymour and a little over a minute later Solar Bears forward Kyle Rankin and the Everblades Josh Wesley exchanged pleasantries. During the four-on-four created by Rankin and Wesley, the visitors got on the board when a turnover by Florida led to Max Novak setting up Perry who beat Everblades netminder Martin Ouellette for his fourth goal of the year.
The Everblades went for the final kill less than two minutes into the third when LaPorte popped the puck past Defiel off a feed from Justin Kea for his third of the season.
Orlando took multiple penalties in the final twenty minutes, give Florida ample opportunities to work on its power play. The biggest chance came with just over seven minutes remaining when Orlando’s Darryl Bootland was given a fighting major and an aggressor game misconduct for engaging LaPorte. On the ensuing man advantage, Matt Mackenzie blasted a one-timer into the top corner of the net for his first goal of the year to create the final score.
Notes: Orlando was outshot by Florida 44-14 in the contest with the Solar Bears mustering just three shots in the third period… The Solar Bears went 0-for-6 on the power play while the Everblades were 2-for-8… Defiel turned in a good performance for his first ECHL regular season contest, stopping 22 of the 25 shots he faced in 34:27 of relief duty… Florida’s Ouellette made 13 saves to pick up his 13th victory of the season… Because of issues, Orlando’s Dzierkals wore Mackenzie Braid’s number 11 jersey while Braid wore the number 30 – a goalie jersey. Defiel wore a black jersey with a hastily sewn on number 2 and no logo… The Solar Bears will have an opportunity to redeem themselves when they head back to Estero on Wednesday, January 3rd for a return matchup with Florida. Game time at Germain Arena is set for 7:30 p.m.
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