ORLANDO, FLA – The last time the Orlando Solar Bears played at the Amway Center, the fans saw goalie Garret Sparks throw a 40-save shutout at the South Carolina Stingrays. It was the start of a stretch that saw the netminder earn ECHL Goalie of the Week honors. Thursday night, the team returned home and Sparks picked up right where he left off.
Denver Manderson scored his tenth and eleventh goals of the season Thursday night (Photo courtesy of F. Medina & G. Bassing/Orlando Solar Bears)
Sparks ran his perfect streak on home ice to just over 137 minutes of game time with a 42-save performance as Orlando blanked the Kalamazoo Wings 4-0. Denver Manderson netted two goals and Marshall Everson picked up a goal and an assist as the Solar Bears offense efficiently parlayed 23 shots into their fifth win in the last six games.
“I don’t know,” Sparks said when asked what it was like to be on such a hot streak. “I just do the same thing every day and consistency is getting me results.”
The word consistency does not do justice to the run that the 21-year old netminder from Elmhurst, Illinois is on. Since a loss to the Stingrays on January 27th, Sparks has won five straight contests, giving up a mere two goals on 168 shots faced, dropping his goals against average to 2.21 (4th best in the ECHL) while upping his league-leading save percentage to .940. In four starts so far in the month of February, he is 4-0 with a 0.50 goals against average and a .984 save percentage.
“It’s just a matter of putting myself in the right place to make saves on every shot,” Sparks said. “If you do the work before the shot, the shot itself isn’t that hard. It’s a matter of getting in the right place and basically just waiting for it.”
With an announced crowd of 5,257 settling into the seats at the Amway, Sparks quickly settled into his “zone” between the pipes, making an early glove save on former Solar Bear Michael Neal among the four he made in the opening ten minutes.
Quickly realizing that Sparks was on his game again, the offense kicked in with two goals in just over a minute to gain control of the contest. At the 10:28 mark of the first, Johnny McInnis drove the puck down the wing to the left of Kalamazoo goalie Joel Martin. Manderson made a beeline to the low slot and got open for a perfect pass from McInnis and slammed it inside the post to Martin’s right.
Orlando (24-16-3-0, 51 points) used the momentum from Manderson’s tenth tally of the year to double the lead in short order. Entering the Kalamazoo end on a quick transition, Everson took the puck into the near circle and saw a hard charging Brock Montgomery cruising down the slot. Everson put a pass onto Montgomery’s stick blade and in the blink of an eye, Montgomery snapped off a shot. It caught the inside of the post, went in and came back out so fast that no one was quite sure it had crossed the line. Brett Findlay, who put the puck back in, was originally credited with the score but after review later, Montgomery was awarded his ninth of the season and third in two games.
“One of my strong suits I think is my shot,” Montgomery said. “I saw an opening and I took it. I was pretty sure it went in but I wasn’t 100 percent sure then Fins (Findlay) went and tapped it in.”
Sparks made that margin stand up well into the second period with a series of key saves. Late in the opening frame, he used his left leg to deny Ludwig Blomstrand on a backside shot and the point blank rebound. The Wings (20-18-2-3, 45 points) followed their 13 shots in the first with 15 more in the second including a strong power play effort where Sparks came up huge on an opportunity by Dana Fox.
The Solar Bears used their grit to increase the lead in the middle frame’s final minute. As time wound down, Findlay outfought a Kalamazoo defender along the boards for the puck. He looked up and saw Everson with some open real estate next to the slot. Findlay’s pass to Everson was true and before Martin knew it, Everson had his ninth goal of the season and third in an Orlando uniform.
Sparks continued to put on a show in the third period, racking up the saves as Kalamazoo pushed to get on the scoreboard. He turned away Neal on a partial breakaway early on and later made leg saves on close in redirects by Blomstrand and Ray Kaunisto. Manderson capped off the scoring with an empty net score in the final minute.
Despite the win, Orlando head coach Vince Williams had plenty of teaching moments for practice on Friday morning ahead of the team’s weekend games against the Fort Wayne Komets.
“I think we gave up a lot more (shots) than we should have. There were forced plays and some turnovers in the neutral zone,” he said. “It’s an area that we have to clean up, especially going into the next two games. We have to be better in that area.”
As for Sparks, he is looking forward to playing Fort Wayne with an opportunity to avenge a November loss to the Komets on the road.
“We’ve got two games against Fort Wayne this weekend. We lost in their rink last time,” Sparks said. “I still have a bitter taste in my mouth from that game.”
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