ORLANDO, FL – The Orlando Solar Bears entered Friday night’s game with the South Carolina with a shot at locking up a spot in the 2018 ECHL Kelly Cup playoffs. It would take a loss by the Jacksonville Icemen in Greenville and a win over the Stingrays, who are still fighting for the top spot in the South division with the Florida Everblades
Orlando’s Max Novak scored his 20th goal of the season Friday night (Photo courtesy of Gary Bassing / Orlando Solar Bears)
Greenville did its part to help by beating the Icemen. The Stingrays, however, were not as willing to aid their likely first round opponent.
Kelly Zajac scored the only goal in the shootout as the visiting Stingrays (42-15-6-1, 91 points) edged the host Solar Bears (31-27-6-3, 71 points) 2-1 in front of an announced crowd of 7,048 at the Amway Center. South Carolina goalie Parker Milner stopped 23 of 24 shots in regulation and overtime plus all three he faced in the skills competition to pick up his second win in three nights against Orlando.
Max Novak had the lone score for the Solar Bears, who had to dig themselves out of a very slow first period to get to free hockey and pick up a point. That point, combined with the Swamp Rabbits win over Jacksonville, lowered Orlando’s magic number for securing a berth in the post season to one.
“I didn’t like our first period. I thought we picked it up in the second and third and we made a game of it,” Orlando head coach and general manager Drake Berehowsky said following the contest. “It’s tough when you lose in overtime but we have to learn that we have to play a full sixty [minutes]. We can’t just come out and play a forty-minute game.”
With a large Noche Latina crowd in the mood for a big start to the weekend, the Solar Bears seemed in position to control the contest out of the gates. Instead it was the visiting Stingrays who had the bigger early punch. Even a penalty just 2:09 into the first period could stop South Carolina from opening the scoring.
With Tad Kozun in the penalty box, the Stingrays went on the offensive. The play started with Milner getting to a dump in and pushing the puck to defenseman Danny Federico. Federico sent it forward to Patrick Megannety who busted out on a two-on-none break. Using his teammate as a decoy, Megannety drove to the low shot where he laced a shot into the top corner past Solar Bears goalie Cal Heeter for his fourth of the season and the team’s eleventh short-handed tally.
Just like Wednesday night’s tussle, the opening frame yielded that lone goal. Heeter did his level headed best to keep the score from getting out of hand, making a total of twelve saves in the stanza. Midway through the period he was at his best, making two brilliant saves on Steven Whitney shortly after the Solar Bears killed off a penalty.
At the other end, Milner, who almost single-handedly willed South Carolina to the Kelly Cup finals last spring, faced a mere three shots from Orlando. The first came with a couple of ticks shy of eleven minutes left in the period and the second a few ticks later. The third shot happened late in the frame.
“I think you’ve got to give South Carolina some credit. They play a good defensive-structured game,” Novak said when asked about Orlando’s troubles with getting shots on net in the first. “It’s not easy to generate shots and then we kind of shot ourselves in the foot there in the first taking one too many penalties so we were a man down. It’s not easy to get shots on the [penalty] kill.”
Orlando goalie Cal Heeter (center) makes one of his 33 saves as South Carolina’s Marcus Perrier (right) looks for a rebound (Photo courtesy of Gary Bassing / Orlando Solar Bears)
Penalties slogged down much of the first period and the theme continued in the middle frame. With one of both teams playing a man down for the entire opening six minutes, neither side could muster much offense.
The Solar Bears finally broke through at the 7:20 mark with a goal coming off an offensive zone faceoff. Kyle Rankin took the draw and managed to push it a couple of feet away from the faceoff dot. Novak was quick to respond, getting to the disc and whirling around with a hard, low shot. The entire sequence caught Milner by surprise as the puck sped between his legs and in for Novak’s 20th goal of the season, a career high.
“Rankin took the draw and it was just kind of sitting behind his foot,” Novak said. “I had a little jump. I just collected it and I tried to spin and just throw it on net and get a rebound or something. I hit the back of the net luckily.”
Thanks to Novak’s milestone tally, Orlando picked up its game but Milner was not willing to allow a second score. His best two of twelve saves in the period came in the same sequence when he denied Robbie Baillargeon and quickly followed with a glove hand snare of a shot by Novak.
Heeter, who was looking for 19th win of the season, played a perfect stanza. He made eight saves during the middle twenty minutes to send the contest to the final twenty minutes tied at one.
Orlando’s Joe Perry (26,center) looks for the puck along with South Carolina’s Parker Milner (right) and Evan Fiala (Photo courtesy of Gary Bassing / Orlando Solar Bears)
The third period was all goaltending, all the time. Both Heeter and Milner were on their games, matching save for save as time ticked off the clock. Heeter was slightly busier, making nine saves to seven by Milner, with a pair of game savers on Steven Whitney and Megannety to send the contest to overtime.
South Carolina had the better of the chances in the extra period. Heeter had to be ready when Zajac had an opportunity midway through. The Orlando netminder, who finished with 33 saves, also fended off a drive by Tommy Hughes that knocked his mask loose. Milner faced only two shots and stopped both to ensure a second straight shootout between the two rivals.
Shooting first, Zajac drove in on Heeter and got in close before firing a backhander home to put the visitors up. Neither side was able to score beyond that with Whitney ringing a shot off the crossbar to start round three and watching it bound away. The game came down to veteran Kale Kerbashian against Milner and the netminder won the battle with a glove save to secure the win.
Asked about Novak and his impact on the Solar Bears, Berehowsky heaped a great deal of praise on the fourth year pro.
“He’s been great. We lean on him a lot. He plays in all situations,” Berehowsky said. “He’s going to be a key to our success going into the playoffs. He’s really amped up his game now and he’s on a roll and hopefull we can keep him rolling.”
As to whether he would be taking a peek at the score of the Jacksonville-Greenville game Saturday night, a game that could put the Solar Bears in the playoffs, Berehowsky said that he was only worried about one thing: his own squad.
“I’m not trying to worry about that too much. We have to worry about what we do,” he said. “If we  win our games, then we won’t have any issues. Whether the other teams win or not, I want to do it on our own merit and on our own. I don’t want to worry about other teams and what they’re doing. I wantto finish as high as we can and go in [to the playoffs] on a high as a team.”
Notes: Final shots were 35-24 in favor of South Carolina… Neither team connected on the power play as the Stingrays went 0-for-5 while the Solar Bears were 0-for-6… Orlando is now 4-0-1-2 in its last seven games at home dating back to late February… With the one point earned for getting past regulation, the Solar Bears’ magic number to lock up the thrid seed in the division sits at five over Atlanta. The Gladiators defeated Cincinnati on Friday night… Orlando played without Hunter Fejes, who was called up and signed to a PTO (professional tryout) by the AHL Toronto Marlies… The teams will finish their three game set in the City Beautiful on Sunday afternoon at 1:30 p.m. at the Amway Center.
Contact the author at don.money@prohockeynews.com
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