Orlando goalie Ryan Massa made 38 saves in Saturday’s win (Photo courtesy of F. Medina & G. Bassing / Orlando Solar Bears)
ORLANDO, FLA – At their core, sports are supposed to be fun because they take one back to his or her childhood days when playing was, well, playing. Sometimes in the world of pro sports, playing a childhood game becomes secondary to the pressure and stress of expectations.
Of course, winning tends to make everything better.
Saturday night in front of the third largest crowd of the season and the added audience of viewers on local television, the Orlando Solar Bears (18-19-2-4, 42 points) found the fun button once again in a 5-2 victory over the Greenville Swamp Rabbits. Five different Solar Bears lit the goal light as part of a night where nine Orlando players had at least one point.
“This is what’s fun. Winning is fun,” solar Bears goalie Ryan Massa, who made 38 saves to earn the win, said. “Certainly the game on Thursday left a pretty sour taste in our mouths, especially [coming] from a team that’s in front of us right now.”
The announced crowd of 7,969 at the Amway Center was certainly ready for a complete effort from the Solar Bears and the team did not disappoint. Orlando gave its fans and head coach Anthony Noreen what they all wanted: a fast start and almost fifty minutes of playing with and holding a lead thanks to a physical style of play that left no doubt whose house the game was being played in.
“Our starts need to be better, that was our focus. Not just this one game but the last fifteen or whatever it has been at home. We need to have better starts and we need to win on home ice,” Noreen said. “I thought our guys took the message the right way. We had a great practice yesterday (Friday), a good meeting and morning skate today and I thought it carried over into the game.”
The quick start concept has been key to the Solar Bears success all season. Heading into Saturday’s contest, Orlando was 11-8-1-0 when scoring first and 12-1-1-0 when leading after one period – a stat that included a 4-1 mark at home. Playing from in front was a challenge put forth by Noreen and assistant coach John Snowden and that challenge was more than accepted.
The Solar Bears got on the board first 10:59 into the opening frame when rookie T.J. Foster busted into the Greenville defensive zone, turned a defender and ripped a shot between the legs of Swamp Rabbits goalie Mackenzie Skapski. It was Foster’s seventeenth of the season, one behind line mate Eric Faille.
Faille was involved in the Solar Bears second score. He put the puck on the stick of Nicklas Lindberg who used a screen by Brady Vail to beat Skapski for his third tally in eleven games since joining the team. It was an especially big score since it came with 12.4 seconds remaining in the frame and gave Orlando a two-goal margin.
The physicality of the game – a good deal of it left over from late in Thursday’s tilt – came to a head right off the opening face off in the second. Solar Bears bruiser Zach Bell went tie-to-toe with Greenville tough guy Tyler Elbrecht just two seconds after the puck hit the ice, sending the crowd into a large roar of approval when Bell finished the fight on top.
Orlando was its own worst enemy midway through the stanza when back-to-back penalties left it down two men. Although the Swamp Rabbits (22-19-6-0, 50 points) failed to score on the two-man advantage, they did get a power play goal when Vinny Saponari somehow found the puck in a scramble in Massa’s crease and squeezed it home for his third of the season.
Holding on to a slim lead heading into the third, the Solar Bears knew Greenville would toss everything at them in the final twenty minutes. While Massa was holding down the fort at his end, Orlando padded its lead when a steal by Lindberg led to an odd-man rush and rookie Jack Rodewald’s seventh goal of the season at the 7:53 mark.
Greenville got itself back into the game with a short-handed tally by Josh Nicholls just shy of the twelve minute mark of the frame. The goal was a bit controversial as Massa made a save on Scott Fleming and as the puck laid under the goalie, Nicholls came in and poked it in when referee Kenny Anderson did not blow the play dead.
“I knew the puck was under me and then I just saw a guy (Nicholls) coming in and he kind of put me in the back of the net with the puck,” Massa said. “Hey, it was a call on the ice. Unfortunately we don’t have video review which is a little disappointing but the hockey gods returned it in our favor.”
The return Massa referred to came in the form of a Matt Rupert power play score with 6:30 left in regulation. The sequence began with a shot by Eric Baier that was tipped by Johnny McInnis in front. Skapski (26 saves) could not control the rebound and Rupert was right there to shovel a backhander in under the crossbar for his ninth of the year.
A late Orlando penalty allowed Greenville head coach Brian Gratz to pull Skapski for a two-man advantage with a little over five minutes remaining. Despite some intense pressure by the Swamp Rabbits, the Solar Bears defense and Massa kept the visitors off the board. Vail sealed the win when he scored his thirteenth into the empty net from his own end with 1:04 to go.
Veteran defenseman Baier, who has been through plenty of ups and downs in his time with Orlando, said the win was a huge step for the young team.
“That’s (start-to-finish effort) what we need every night [and] every game. You keep having games like that and you give yourself the best chance to pull into a playoff spot and that’s what we’re really looking at,” he said. “Our backs are kind of against the wall right now so you’ve got to come out and perform like that. That’s the feeling that needs to be driven into us right now.”
Contact the author at Don.money@prohockeynews.com
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