ORLANDO, FLA – Thursday night at the Amway Center, the Orlando Solar Bears began a stretch of 15 games against their opponents in the ECHL’s South division. The Greenville Swamp Rabbits came calling to the City Beautiful and if the contest was any indication of what play will be like during this stretch, the playoffs may have already begun.
Darik Angeli celebrates his first period goal Thursday night (Photo courtesy of Gary Bassing / Orlando Solar Bears)
Joe Perry scored his team-leading 22nd goal early in the third period and goalie Kasimir Kaskisuo made it stand up with 36 saves as the Solar Bears (22-15-5-2, 51 points) edged the Swamp Rabbits (23-17-4-1, 51 points) 3-2 in front of an announced crowd of 3,918. By virtue of the win and a tie-breaker, Orlando jumped ahead of Greenville into second place in the division with idle South Carolina falling into fourth position just two points back.
“I thought it was a great game by both teams,” Orlando head coach Drake Berehowsky said following the win. “Both teams played hard. Both teams had opportunities and we were fortunate to come out with the two points.”
There is no love lost between the two bitter divisional rivals and it showed early as Solar Bears defenseman Alexandre Carrier and Swamp Rabbits forward Andrew Dommett tossed the sticks and gloves aside for a bare-knuckled bout just 1:42 into the first period. The fight set the tone for the contest as both combatants refused to give in before Carrier prevailed in a barrage of blows.
Despite a quick start by Greenville, it was Orlando that got on the board first. Eight minutes and seven seconds in, Solar Bears defenseman Ben Danford fed teammate Brenden Miller for a blast from the top of the circle to the right of Swamp Rabbits goalie Mackenzie Skapski. Skapski made the initial save but he left a juicy rebound that rookie Mason Marchment pounced on and slammed into the net for his fifth goal of the season.
The Swamp Rabbits, coming off a Wednesday night overtime loss to Florida, answered back 92 seconds later when a defensive lapse allowed Greenville forward Michael Joly to find a wide open Angelo Miceli cruising just off the slot to Kaskisuo’s left. Miceli took the pass and rifled a shot to the far side top corner for his eight tally of the year at the 9:39 mark.
Orlando’s Danford, who like Miller has become as much an offensive threat as a defender of late, made the key play to set up the Solar Bears second goal a little over two minutes after Miceli’s score. Danford took the puck down low and circled along the boards to Skapski’s right. He looked up and saw Darik Angeli cutting through the slot and threaded a perfect pass to his teammate. Angeli did the rest, finishing his move across the front of the net by tucking a backhander past the netminder for his eighth goal of the season and fifth with the Solar Bears.
“My line was working really good down low. Danford snuck down and filled in the cycle a little bit,” Angeli said. “I just kind of filled in the middle and he made a great pass. I just threw it on net backhanded and luckily it went in.”
The second period began much like the first in that an early fight set a tone. This time it was Miller who went with Greenville’s Nick Betz, who put up a battle before being knocked off balance and down by the Solar Bears blueliner.
Unfortunately for the home team, Miller drew a minor penalty just before the fight and when teammate Chris Bradley was nabbed for delay of game not too long later, Greenville found itself with more than a minute for five-on-three power play time. The visitors took advantage of the gift when Trevor Gerling got in front of Kaskisuo at the top of the crease and redirected a shot by Desmond Bergin into the back of the net for a man advantage score and his tenth goal of the season. It tied the score at two, which is where things stayed through the remainder of the frame.
Early in the third period, the Solar Bears regained the lead thanks to Miller and Perry. After taking a feed from newly signed defenseman Kyle Shapiro, Miller went to lineup a shot at the net. He took a quick look and saw Perry setting up in the high slot area with no defender near him. Miller nailed a perfect slap pass to Perry who deftly used his stick blade to turn the puck toward the net and got enough elevation on it to fool Skapski as the disc sailed over his left into the net.
“It was a good find by Millsy (Miller) finding me in the slot. I was just trying to obviously redirect the puck and it ended up in a perfect spot,” Perry said. “You don’t really try to place it when you’re doing that but [you’re] obviously trying to get the puck in the air to kind of confuse the goalie a little bit and luckily it found the right spot.”
From there the game belonged to Kaskisuo and the defense. The rookie netminder, who had last played on January 20th in Estero, came up big time and time again during the final stanza. He faced 14 Greenville shots over the course of the period, stopping every one of them to seal the win.
“I’ve had a couple of tough games lately. I’ve been letting in too many goals in my mind but tonight it was good,” Kaskisuo said. “I got a lot of shots and [only allowed] two goals in. We got the win so it was a big night for us and for me.”
Notes: In suffering the loss, Greenville’s Skapski was excellent, making 42 saves… Orlando’s power play suffered another outage, going 0-for-2 while the Swamp Rabbits went 1-for-3… With his goal, Angeli extended his points streak to four games (two goal, three assists)… The Solar Bears are now 4-1-2-1 against Greenville this season. Orlando also holds the second tie-breaker (goal differential) which allowed it to jump from fourth to second in the standings… After an off day, the two teams will square off again Saturday night at the Amway Center at 7 p.m. That contest will be preceded by the Solar Bears’ fifth annual “Guns and Hoses” game between the Central Florida Enforcers (Police) and Orange County Fire Rescue teams at 2 p.m. A ticket for the Solar Bears game will allow entrance to the Guns and Hoses matchup.
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