ORLANDO, FL – One of the biggest issues with the Orlando Solar Bears this season has been a lack of consistency. Only once in 51 games had the Solar Bears won three games in a row. Following Thursday’s solid effort against the Worcester Railers, fans were hoping that their team could pick up a second straight win and set up a weekend sweep.
Orlando’s Max Novak (center) had the lone goal in Friday’s loss (Photo courtesy of Fernando Medina / Orlando Solar Bears)
Unfortunately, the count dropped back to zero on Friday.
Eight different players picked up a point as the visiting Railers (22-21-4-2, 50 points) secured a 4-1 victory over the Solar Bears (22-24-5-1, 50 points) in front of an announced crowd of 4,393 at the Amway Center. Former Orlando goalie Mitch Gillam was named first star, making 42 saves in his first start against the team that game him his first pro contract.
Max Novak scored his 15th goal of the season for the Solar Bears to avoid a shutout but it was well short of what Orlando needed as the home team reverted to the effort it showed in a loss to Wheeling on Monday.
“I just don’t think we were prepared to play the right way,” Solar Bears head coach and general manage Drake Berehowsky said in a deadpan tone following the loss. “I think we started to get a little too fancy. We didn’t get pucks into the spots we needed to get them. We didn’t put it in deep. We had too many turnovers. We didn’t put enough pucks at the net. At the start of the game, for the first five minutes, we did a good job and then they got a bounce on us and scored and we just kind of stopped playing.”
The Solar Bears came out like gangbusters in an effort to catch the Railers on their heels as the first period opened. Gillam, who played one regular season game and three playoff contests last spring in an Orlando jersey, backed up his 15-save relief performance on Thursday by stonewalling his former team.
Gillam’s effort allowed Worcester to ease into its offense and the visitors took the lead for good just 5:53 in. It came when Yanick Turcotte found a wide open Tommy Kelley in front of Orlando goalie Cal Heeter. Kelley immediately wristed a shot high to the top corner on Heeter’s glove side for his third goal of the season.
Just over three minutes later, the Railers doubled their lead. Playing on a power play, Matt Lane was in a perfect spot to redirect a shot by Ben Masella past the Solar Bears goalie. For Lane, it was his eighth of the season and the beginning of a very long night for the home team.
Try as they might, the Solar Bears just could not find any weaknesses in Gillam, who is in his rookie season after a solid career at Cornell University. Gillam finished the opening frame with eleven saves and a clean scoresheet.
Solar Bears goalie Cal Heeter (right) battles Worcester’s Chris Langkow during Friday’s second period (Photo courtesy of Fernando Medina / Orlando Solar Bears)
Early in the second, Heeter came up with a big save when he stared down Woody Hudson and stopped the speedy forward’s break away. Heeter was not so luck soon after when Barry Almeida cashed in the rebound of a shot by Masella out of a scramble in front. The shot by Almeida trickled through Heeter’s legs and slowly skidded its way across the goal line before any Orlando defender could swipe it away.
One minute and 47 seconds later, Heeter went out of the crease to play the puck and ended up getting knocked to the ice and away from the front of the net. He scrambled back quickly but could not get in position to stop a shot by Kyle McKenzie from finding its way into the net. It was the third goal of the season for the Railers rookie defender and it brought Heeter’s night to an end as Berehowsky sent Mackenzie Skapski out to finish the contest.
Frustration began to set in as Solar Bears captain Sean Zimmerman dropped the gloves with Worcester’s Connor Doherty. Both combatants got in some good shots before they fell to the ice with Doherty appearing to land on top.
While all this was going on, Gillam was putting on a clinic between the pipes. The Solar Bears began firing pucks from every which way but the Railers netminder was spot on, collecting another 16 saves in the second period. Orlando had 27 shots through two period but were still sitting on a goose egg on the scoreboard.
“We need to get to the house. We need to create second and third opportunities,” Berehowsky said of the high shot count that yielded nothing through forty minutes. “Tonight for the first two periods, we didn’t do it.”
Playing with a big lead, the Railers were more than willing to let Gillam shine. It seemed like the young goalie got better with each passing shot. It took less than seven minutes for Orlando to put seven shots on net but the home team still found itself without a score.
Orlando finally broke the ice at the 11:04 mark of the third with some pretty passing and rebounding. Martins Dzierkals started the sequence by zipping into the Worcester end. He threaded a pass to Hunter Fejes who directed a shot on Gillam who made the save. Just as Berehowsky had wanted, Novak drove to the front of the net and buried the puck in the twine for a goal that seemed more like a moral victory than anything else.
“It was a simple play. Zerks [Dzierkals] drove wide and Feej [Fejes] drove the net,” Novak said about how his goal came about. “He got a pass from Zerks [and] just threw a backhander on net. I was crashing the net as the F-3, it came off the goalie’s pad and I had an empty net [to shoot at].”
Fans hoped the score would jump start the Solar Bears offense but that failed to happen. Instead it was a simple case of the Railers running out the clock to get the ninth win of the season for Gillam.
“I think we had a better push in the third but they were just kind of sitting back just buying time to eat the clock,” Novak said. “They were up 4-0 [to start the period] so they could do that.”
With one more game against Worcester on Saturday night, Berehowsky is again looking at trying to stop the cycle that is preventing the Solar Bears from going on a sustained winning streak.
“We talk about. We let the players know how important these games are, how important it is to get on a little bit of a roll here,” he said. “We have to change our way of thinking. We maybe have to get the negativity out of there [locker room]. It seems like our guys are getting down really fast. We can’t be like that. No matter what happens, we have the ability to score some goals and we’ve just got to stick to it. We can’t stray when we get behind and we’ve got to workto get our opportunities.”
Notes: Orlando hit the 40-shot mark again, outshooting Worcester 43-35… The Solar Bears power play failed in four attempts while the Railers connected once in four tries… Gillam has made 57 saves on 58 shots faced in roughly a game and a half. With his goaltending partner Eamon McAdam suspedned for both Friday and Saturday, Gillam will get a chance to add to those totals… Skapski finished with 18 saves in relief of Heeter… Fejes ran his assist streak to five games (6 assists) while Dzierkals now has a two-game point streak running (1 goal, 2 assists)… Saturday’s game will be the third and final live broadcast by WRBW My65 in the Orlando market. Puck drop is set for just after 7 p.m.
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