NORTH CHARLESTON, SC – The Orlando Solar Bears, in particular its special teams units, have been a work in progress all season. As of late, the power play has seemed to be gaining momentum while the usually strong penalty killing sets have been a pretty steady constant.
Saturday night at the North Charleston Coliseum, both sides of the equation had issues and in the end the team as a whole paid for it.
Led by two goals by Kelly Zajac and multiple scores on both the man advantage and penalty kill, the host South Carolina Stingrays (26-10-4-1, 57 points) shut out Orlando (18-19-5-1, 42 points) 5-0 in front of an announced crowd of 8,831 on Military Appreciation night in the Low Country. Nick Roberto, Hampus Gustafsson, Steven Whitney and Frankie Simonelli all had multi-point nights to join Zajac in the rout.
Playing without Kristian Pospisil, who was suspended for three games earlier in the day for an illegal hit to the head on Friday night, Solar Bears head coach and general manager Drake Berehowsky once again had to tinker with his lineup. One thing he felt sure of was starting goalie Mackenzie Skapski in place of Cal Heeter, who was banged up in a collision the night before.
Skapski started off well, making a pair of bang-bang saves in the early stages of the first period as the Stingrays continued their barrage of shots from 24 hours earlier. The Orlando goalie did get some help from forward Kyle Rankin, who made a superb backchecking play to rob Zajac of a sure goal. At the other end, South Carolina netminder Parker Milner was equally as sharp, picking off shot after shot as the Solar Bears slowly picked up their offense as the first frame went along.
Late in the period, a penalty to Orlando’s Mike Monfredo for playing without his helmet came back to bite the visitors. On the ensuing power play, Stingrays All-Star forward Taylor Cammarata fired a shot toward the net that Zajac, in amongst some traffic, redirected into the net for his 11th of the season. The goal, which came with just 38.8 seconds left in the stanza, allowed South Carolina to take a 1-0 lead into the break.
Orlando seemed to get the meaasge between periods and began to play much more aggressively in the second frame, slowly but surely taking over the shot clock. An early power play did not pay off but at the 11:25 mark, a second opportunity with the man advantage seemed to come at the right time.
Unfortunately for the Solar Bears, they failed in a big way when a turnover created an odd-man rush for the short-handed Stingrays. On the break, Roberto drove into the Orlando end where he fed the puck to Gustafsson cutting into the faceoff circle to Skapski’s left. Gustafsson did the rest, firing a shot low to the right side of the net for his fourth of the season and a 2-0 lead for the home team.
A late period penalty to the Stingrays Patrick Megannety gave Orlando another chance to get back into the game. The power play rolled over into the start of the third and when Joey Leach was tagged for cross-checking, the Solar Bears had 20 seconds of five-on-three man advantage time. Milner stood his ground, making a couple of key saves to help his team successfully kill off both infractions.
The Stingrays extended their lead to three goals at the 7:19 mark of the frame when out of a scramble in front, Zajac found the puck and put it into the back for the net for his second of the night and 12th of the year with assists going to Joe Devin and Whitney.
A little over four minutes later, Devin went to the penalty box, giving the Solar Bears their fifth power play of the game. The advantage failed to deliver and proved costly when a misplay created a breakout for Roberto who outwaited Skapski and slid a backhander home for his first goal of the season and South Carolina’s second short-handed tally of the night.
With just under four minutes left in regulation, tempers flared and the result was Solar Bears veteran forward Darryl Bootland being hit with a match penalty for fighting under rule 46.15. The resulting power play created the final score of the game when Tim McGauley fired a shot from the right circle that beat Skapski (27 saves) with 1.7 seconds left to create the final score.
Milner was named the first star of the game, making 38 saves to pick up his first shutout of the season.
Notes: Orlando outshot South Carolina 38-32 in the contest… The Solar Bears went 0-for-5 on the power play and allowed the two short-handed scores while the Stingrays finished the night 2-for-4 with the man advantage… With Heeter not available, Orlando had Brett Epstein as an emergency backup to Skapski… The shutout was just the second time the Solar Bears had been blanked this season, the first coming on November 21st against Norfolk… Orlando will try to get back on the winning track Sunday afternoon when it visits the Atlanta Gladiators for a 2:05 p.m. puck drop at the Infinite Energy Arena.
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