DULUTH, GA – When the Orlando Solar Bears set out on their season-high nine-game road trip, Head Coach and General Manager Drake Berehowsky probably would have been thrilled with a 6-3 record before heading home for much of the month of February. The Solar Bears had a chance to achieve that mark if they could reprise their victory from a week earlier against the Atlanta Gladiators.
Orlando showed plenty of grit at the Infinite Energy Arena Saturday night but a late mistake and some awful luck kept the Solar Bears away from attaining their goal.
Joseph Widmar scored his first two goals including the game winner with just three seconds left in regulation to lift the Gladiators (16-19-6-1) to a 4-3 victory over the Solar Bears (22-18-3-0) in front of an announced crowd of 10,243. Alex Schoenborn, Chris LeBlanc and Mike Robinson each scored once for Orlando but a late penalty allowed the Gladiators to net a power play score to secure the win.
The visiting Solar Bears began digging themselves a hole in the first period, taking a pair of penalties in the opening 7:08 of play. On the second power play, Atlanta connected when Joel Messner fired a shot that missed the net but took a hard kick off the end boards. Before Orlando goalie Martin Ouellette could respond, Nick Bligh grabbed the carom and fired it into the net for his 14th goal of the season.
The Gladiators doubled their lead late in the frame thanks to some nifty passing. After a faceoff win, Atlanta co-captain Derek Nesbitt put the puck on Bligh’s stick at the crease. With Ouellette shifting to his side, Bligh found Widmar wide open on the other side for an easy tally for the forward’s second goal of the year.
Needing a response, the Solar Bears came out of the first intermission with a mission. They began to complete the task they wanted when at the 2:26 mark of the second period, Robinson took a feed from Colby McAuley and fired a shot past Gladiators netminder Sean Bonar for his third of the season.
Orlando kept pushing for the tying goal and on two occasions the Solar Bears thought they had it only to be bitten by bad luck. The first, which came with just under eight minutes left in the frame, was a redirection by Robinson but the referee waived it off because Robinson’s stick was above the height of the crossbar.
Less than three minutes later, Tayler Thompson appeared to have scored his second goal in as many nights but again the referee negated the would-be game-tying score. This time the visitors were judged to have interfered with Bonar as the goalie’s stick was knocked from his hands.
The Solar Bears finally did come up with the equalizer thanks to a late period power play. With 2:07 left before the second intermission, defenseman Matthew Spencer drove the puck at the Atlanta net. Before it got to Bonar, Chris LeBlanc got a piece of it and deflected it home for his sixth goal of the year and a 2-2 tie after 40 minutes.
The final frame was a back-and-forth affair with both Ouellette (29 saves) and Bonar (27 saves) matching stop for stop. Finally at the 12:36 mark, the Gladiators went back in front when Brian Cooper got the puck at the blueline and instead of passing, he fired a shot that eluded Ouellette for his first goal of the year.
All looked lost for the Solar Bears but as they had several times during the trip, they had an answer late in regulation. Playing on the power play and with Ouellette pulled for an extra attacker, Schoenborn centered the puck from below the goal line into the crease. It hit Bonar and snuck its way across the line. The goal judge did not put the goal light on, forcing the officials to go to replay (the Infinite Energy Arena is one of four ECHL buildings experimenting with replay on goals). The video showed that Schoenborn had netted his fifth of the season to even the score with 1:14 left.
With 22 ticks left before a potential overtime period, Orlando captain Mike Monfredo was whistled for cross checking, putting Atlanta on the power play one last time. Just when it seemed as time would run out, Justin MacDonald sent the puck toward the net when it bounced to Widmar who beat Ouellette to the short side for his second of the night with three seconds to go.
The victory extended Atlanta’s consecutive games with a point streak to nine contests. It also pulled the Gladiators within eight points of the Solar Bears for fourth place in the ECHL’s South division.
Notes: Final shots were 33-30 in favor of Atlanta… The Solar Bears finished the night 2-for-4 on the power play while the Gladiators went 2-for-5… Orlando’s McAuley extended his consecutive games with a point streak to seven games (3 goals, 7 assists)… Friday night, the Solar Bears’ LeBlanc played in his 100th game as a member of the Orlando team, making him the 14th player to play that many ECHL games for the Solar Bears… Orlando returns home to the Amway Center for 11 of the next 13 games beginning with matchups on Wednesday and Friday nights with the Jacksonville Icemen.
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