ORLANDO, FLA – Tuesday night at the Amway Center, two teams with streaks going in opposite directions met with one looking to stop a four game winless streak while the other was looking to improve on a four game winning streak. Either both streaks would continue or both would be broken.
Orlando’s Todd Skirving (17,white) sets a screen in front of Greenville goalie Brandon Halverson (Photo courtesy of Fernando Medina / Orlando Solar Bears)
Unfortunately for the host Orlando Solar Bears, both streaks live on.
Backed by goals from seven different players and solid goaltending from Brandon Halverson, the visiting Greenville Swamp Rabbits (6-3-1-0, 13 points) pushed their winning streak to five games with a convincing 7-2 victory over the Solar Bears (2-5-1-0, 5 points) in front of an announced crowd of 3,475. The Swamp Rabbits broke open a tie game after the first period with five unanswered goals over the final forty minutes to secure the win.
J.J. Piccinich and Max Novak each scored a special teams tally for Orlando in the opening frame but as it had been over the previous four contests, the Solar Bears lacked the zip and grit – especially on the defensive end – to come away with a win.
“It was a terrible game. It was probably one of the most boring games I’ve ever coached,” Solar Bears head coach Drake Berehowsky said. “I don’t think we played with any jam or spark.”
Looking to infuse some spark into his team, Berehowsky made a change in net. Starter Cal Heeter, who had started the previous four games on the homestand, got the night off as newly assigned netminder Mackenzie Skapski began the game against his former team. The new Solar Bears netminder caught a bad break when a clearing attempt was picked off at the blueline by Greenville defenseman Sergey Zborovskiy. Zborovskiy immediately sent a shot toward the net that hit Orlando defenseman Nolan Valleau and bounded into the net just 2:41 in. For Zborovskiy it was his third goal of the season.
Just over three minutes later, Orlando struck back with the first of two special teams tallies. While killing a penalty to Chris Crane, Piccinich took the puck away from the Swamp Rabbits at center ice and swooped into the Greenville defensive zone. dropping down to the face-off dot to Halverson’s left, the Paramus, New Jersey native ripped a wrist shot into the far side of the net for his second of the season – his first since scoring the overtime game-winner against Jacksonville on October 14th.
“The puck just kind of started squirting [away] in the neutral zone so I got a stick on it,” Piccinich said. “I had a one-on-one with some space and coach has been saying [to] get pucks to the net so I did and was lucky for it to go in.”
Late in the opening frame, the Solar Bears were handed a power play when Greenville’s Carter Sandlack was nabbed for a face-off violation that is now a penalty. On the man advantage, Valleau set up Novak for a quick shot from the near side face-off circle that beat Halverson for his third of the season and a lead for the home team.
That lead lasted until the final minute of the stanza when when the Swamp Rabbits used some pretty passing to even the score. Allan McPherson started the playby sending a pass toward the front of the net. Caleb Herbert redirected the puck across the front to Branden Troock who buried it into the open side of the cage for his fourth of the year. Coming with 46.5 seconds left before the intermission, it was a score that inflated the visitors as much as it deflated the homes squad.
“You would think there would be but there wasn’t. That’s something that we need to address,” Berehowsky said when asked whether his team got any bounce out of the two special teams goals. “We have to be better. We didn’t play with any jam. We’re not playing the way we’re supposed to be playing. We’re not playing a hard game and in order to succeed in this business you have to play a hard game.”
Orlando’s Chris LeBlanc (16, white) looks for an open teammate in front of the net (Photo courtesy of Fernando Medina / Orlando Solar Bears)
Things went from bad to worse for Orlando in the middle period. Four minutes and six seconds into the frame, Greenville took the lead for good when Jack Nevins flipped apass to Sandlack at the base of the circle to Skapski’s left. Sandlack knocked down the feed with his skate, collected the puck and fired it past the Solar Bears goalie for his second of the season.
The teams battle back and forth throughout much of the remaining time in the stanza with the goalies taking center stage. Halverson was locked in at his end of the ice while Skapski, who was playing in a game for the first time since last April, settled in and played solidly.
With just over four minutes remaining until the second intermission, the Swamp Rabbits earned themselves an odd man rush and cashed in. Taking the puck at center ice, Troock sped down the wing to Skapski’s left with Evan Jasper creating a two-on-one. Troock fed the puck and Jasper did the rest, cutting down the slot and getting Skapski moving one way before changing directions and tucking the disc into the net for his fourth tally of the year.
Greenville’s lead went from two to three with a little less than two minutes left in the period when onetime Solar Bear Joe Basaraba sent a shot/pass to the front of the net where Brenden Kotyk redirected it home. Kotyk’s second of the season made it a 5-2 game heading to the third frame.
Feeling a need to try to change the game’s momentum, Â Berehowsky replaced Skapski with Heeter to beging the final twenty minutes. Offensively, the Solar Bears took it up several notches on the shot clock but Halverson was in a zone and stopping everything in sight. He allowed his teammates to free-wheel and it paid off with a score by Herbert (fifth of the season) off a feed from Adam Chapie at 12:34 and a second tally18 seconds later when Chapie netted his team-high seventh of the year to push the game out of reach.
Despite the loss, Piccinich said he thinks the Solar Bears are getting closer to finding the chemistry needed to turn the early season disappointments into wins.
“I think we’re right there. We believe we’re better [than our record]. Those two games against Atlanta in particular, we could [have] easily steal those,” he said. “A couple of bounces the wrong way, that stuff happens. We believe in our system [and] we think we can beat anyone with it. There are definitely things we have to clean up and be more fluid but at the end of the day we can compete with any team in this league in our eyes. It hasn’t gone our way yet but it will.”
Notes: Orlando outshot Greenville 45-23 in the game including a 24-6 advantage in the third period… Halverson finished with 43 saves to pick up the win whils Skapski was credited with the loss, making 12 saves in two periods of play… The Solar Bears went 1-for-4 on the power play while the Swamp Rabbits were 0-for-1…The two teams will meet again Thursday morning at 10:30 am at the Amway Center. The special start time is to accommodate Orlando’s second annual School Day game.
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