ORLANDO, FLA – So far, the 2018-19 ECHL regular season has not been kind to the Orlando Solar Bears at home. Through the team’s first sixteen games at the Amway Center, the Solar Bears had struggled to get to an even .500 record at 8-8-0-0. Wednesday, Orlando began the 2019 portion of its schedule against the Greenville Swamp Rabbits, who had struggled both at home and especially on the road but held a 1-1-1-0 record against the Solar Bears in three meetings.
Orlando goalie Corbin Boes (right) fends off a shot and traffic from Greenville’s Thomas Ebbing (18, white) during Wednesday’s first period (Photo courtesy of Fernando Medina / Orlando Solar Bears)
When all was said and done, it was Greenville that had the luck and just enough skill to win.
Dylan Vander Esch scored the eventual game-winning goal 9:02 into the third period and Garrett Bartus made 29 saves in net as the Swamp Rabbits (13-18-3-2) came away with a 2-1 victory over the host Solar Bears (16-13-3-0) in front of an announced post-holiday crowd of 4,365. Mathieu Foget scored the lone goal for Orlando while netminder Corbin Boes stopped 25 of the 27 shots he faced.
“I think we were just on different pages. We just weren’t clicking tonight [with] just a couple of days off from the rink and we had just one practice before,” Solar Bears captain Mike Monfredo said following the loss. “It’s not an excuse but we were just on different pages and just couldn’t seem to get rolling.”
Getting rolling has been a consistent problem for the Solar Bears and Wednesday’s first period was not exception. Although Orlando notched the first two shots of the game, it was Boes who ended up being the busier of the two goalies in the opening frame. Boes made eleven saves in the period but it was the one he did not get that put Greenville in front.
Late in the frame, the Solar Bears were on the power play but the Swamp Rabbits took advantage. Defenseman Dan Milan intercepted a dump-in by Orlando into the Greenville end and fired a pass off the boards to Michael Pelech in the neutral zone. Pelech advanced into the Solar Bears defensive zone and cut to the middle of the ice. As the defenders followed him, Pelech dropped a pass to Brendan Harms who was trailing. Harms had plenty of room to pick a spot and fired the puck low to Boes’ glove side for his 5th of the season and the team’s sixth short-handed tally.
At the other end, Bartus was having a much easier time of it. He went about seven minutes between the Solar Bears second and third shots in the stanza but was busy down the stretch, finishing with eight saves. He was also a little lucky as well as Orlando appeared to beat him in the dying seconds but a quick whistle by referee Steven Sailor nullified what might have been the equalizing tally.
“[We] had a slow start [in the first period],” Foget said. “It definitely was not the start we wanted.”
Solar Bears forward Chris LeBlanc (16, purple) sets up in front of Greenville goalie Garrett Bartus during Wednesday’s second period (Photo courtesy of Fernando Medina / Orlando Solar Bears)
The middle frame ended up being the busiest for Bartus. Thanks to three power play opportunities, the Solar Bears racked up sixteen shots on the sixth-year pro netminder with Bartus stopping all but one.
The one that got past Bartus had its own bit of controversy to it. Just seconds after a man advantage, the Solar Bears were pressing hard for a game-tying score. At the 5:56 mark, the puck got to Foget who fired a shot from the left circle off a feed from Colby McAuley. It appeared to hit in the back of the net and quickly bounce out and the referee, who was screened by another Orlando player, immediately signaled no goal. After talking with his two linesmen and the goal judge – who had flipped the goal light on at the time of the shot – the play was ruled a good goal and Foget had his ninth of the year and eighth with the Solar Bears.
“I just walked off the wall [and] passed it down to Colby. He made a nice play back to me and I just kind of tried to find the open net and kind of put it top corner there,” Foget said. “I think everyone else knew it went in. I don’t know what the long wait was [for].”
Defensively, the Solar Bears rewarded Boes for his work in the first with a rocking chair second. The rookie netminder saw only five Swamp Rabbits shots in the stanza and turned away all of them to send the game to the third tied at 1-1.
Both teams started off slowly in the final frame with shots being at a premium thanks to some tight defense. The Swamp Rabbits got their second power play of the game at the 6:40 mark but failed to generate more than one shot that Boes easily handled. Less than thirty seconds after the man advantage, Greenville cashed in when a shot by Chad Duchesne hit the skate of Vander Esch and clanked off the post to the goalie’s left. It came out into the low slot where Vander Esch popped it in for his second tally in as many games and fifth of the season.
The goal emboldened the visitors and they began to pummel Boes with shots but the young netminder held his own. While that was going on, Bartus was not pushed hard until the final five minutes of regulation as Orlando tried to mount an attack. Even with Boes pulled for an extra attacker in the final 1:27, the Solar Bears only managed one shot as the Swamp Rabbits fiercely defended their goalie and were able to protect the lead and the win.
Greenville’s Michael Pelech (23, center) is caught in between Solar Bears goalie Corbin Boes (left) and defenseman Mike Monfredo during Wednesday’s contest (Photo courtesy of Fernando Medina / Orlando Solar Bears)
Orlando Head Coach and General Manager Drake Berehowsky was less than pleased with his team’s effort, refusing to make any excuses – even the disruption of the just concluded holidays – for the loss.
“I didn’t like our game. I thought we only played really one period. The other periods we weren’t engaged and we didn’t play the way we should have and the way we can,” Berehowsky said. “There’s no excuse. These guys are professional athletes. There’s absolutely no excuse, no matter what time of the year it is.They’re expected to go out and do a job. I have to do my job, they have to do their job, you have to do your job whether it’s Christmas or not. This is the profession we all picked and whether we’re missing Thanksgiving or we’re on the road for someone’s birthday, it is what it is.”
With two more home games over the weekend against South Carolina before hitting the road for much of the rest of January, Monfredo said that getting right back to work is the best way to start rectifying Wednesday night’s ills.
“Just get right back in the grind tomorrow. Practice hard, get everybody’s feet moving and get into a mesh together,” he said.
Notes: Final shots favored Orlando 30-27… Neither team connected on the power play as the Solar Bears went 0-for-4 while the Swamp Rabbits went 0-for-2… Greenville was missing its leading scorer Johno May (17 goals, 13 assists), who was loaned to the AHL’s San Diego Gulls on Monday… This weekend’s Solar Bears games against the Stingrays will celebrate “Florida Hockey”. Saturday’s 7 p.m. contest will celebrate the team’s affiliation with the Tampa Bay Lightning while Sunday’s 1:30 p.m. afternoon game will be followed by the club teams for the University of Central Florida and the University of South Florida battling in the hockey version of the “War on I-4” along the Central Florida / Interstate 4 corridor. Tickets for the ECHL game will allow holders to stay for the collegiate contest.
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