ORLANDO, FLA – When Orlando Solar Bears defenseman Matthew Spencer had himself a career night on Saturday, everyone thought it was simply a case of a player stepping up in a big spot. After all, getting a goal and two assists in a single contest was not exactly the norm for Spencer, who is better known for being a standup blueliner.
What no one seemed to know was that Spencer was not quite done being a hero during the penultimate weekend of the 2020-21 ECHL regular season.
Spencer followed his performance on Saturday with another goal and two assists on Sunday – his goal being the game-winner in overtime – as Orlando (35-26-6-1) took down the Florida Everblades (40-19-4-3) by a final of 3-2 in front of an announced crowd of 2,652 at the Amway Center Nikita Pavlychev added a goal and an assist of his own for the second straight game and Tristin Langan reprised his late game-tying goal from Friday by doing it again on Sunday.
The win put the Solar Bears back into sole possession of fourth place in the ECHL’s Eastern division over the idle South Carolina Stingrays. Orlando has a .006 lead in points percentage (.566 to .560 for the Stingrays) and still holds the potential tie-breaker of most regulation time victories heading into the final week of the season. The two teams will have one final meeting on Thursday at the Amway Center that could decide who continues on and who heads to the off-season come June 6th.
Spencer’s winning tally harkened back to some of the defensive greats of the game. Taking the puck from Aaron Luchuk in the neutral zone, Spencer saw that he had room to skate toward the Florida end of the ice. As he hit the Everblades defensive blue line, a gaping hole opened up and Spencer instinctively charged through, getting in and firing high to the short side on Florida netminder Devin Cooley 49 seconds into the extra period to send the fans home happy.
Sunday’s rubber game of the three-game weekend series was all about defense and playoff-style hockey. Only one puck crossed the goal line in the first period because the netminders, Cooley for the Everblades and Clint Windsor for the Solar Bears, were determined to avoid a repeat of Saturday’s 6-4 win by Orlando. Both teams were doing what they could to limit shots on net and the numbers bore that out as Florida recorded 11 shots on net while the Solar Bears rang up 14.
The aforementioned lone goal of the frame came from the home team and it continued a couple of themes that ran during the weekend. Playing with the first man advantage of the contest, the Solar Bears made the Everblades pay. On the ensuing faceoff after Marcus Vela was whistled for high-sticking at 7:21, Langan won the offensive zone draw back to Spencer at the point. He saw a shooting lane and fired a shot that Pavlychev was positioned to deflect into the net for the Tampa Bay Lightning prospect’s fifth of the season and third in as many games with all three being redirects of Spencer setups.
The middle frame was just as tight and defensive-minded. The script was flipped as Florida had more scoring chances and shots by a 14-9 margin. The Everblades also netted the only goal of the stanza. It came at the 4:45 mark when Alex Kile avoided a Solar Bears defender and put a shot on net that Windsor stopped. The rebound came off the goalie’s pads far enough out for Blake Winiecki to get control and shovel it home for his 19th of the year to even things at 1-1 where it stayed heading into the second intermission.
The teams went back and forth for more than half of the third period with no success on the scoreboard. It wasn’t until the 12:47 point of the stanza that either team found the twine. The Everblades took their one and only lead of the game when Stefan Leblanc sent Myles Powell and Joe Pendenza away on a two-on-three rush. Pendenza found enough room to draw a defender his way and quickly fed a pass to Powell. Powell was able to fire the puck over Windsor for his 17th tally of the season to put the visitors up 2-1.
As time began to wind down, Orlando caught a break when Florida’s Cody Sol was called for high-sticking with 2:04 left in regulation. Then with about 1:20 to go, Solar Bears Head Coach and General Manager Drake Berehowsky pulled Windsor for an extra attacker to make it a six-on-four advantage. Orlando worked the puck around from Luchuk to Spencer and eventually to Langan. The crafty forward drew into the faceoff circle to Cooley’s right and using Pavlychev as a screen, went high short side for his second game-tying goal of the weekend and team leading 27th of the year with 1:03 remaining.
Neither team was able to connect for the winner in the final 63 seconds of regulation, setting up the second overtime in three games. There was only one shot recorded in the extra time, the one off the stick of Spencer that was the game-winner.
Windsor made 33 saves in picking up his 22nd win of the year, which tied him with Florida’s Jake Hildebrand for most wins in the ECHL this season as well as pulling even with Ryan Massa in 2015-16 for most victories in a single season in franchise history. It was also Windsor’s 41st career win as a Solar Bear, equaling Massa’s benchmark franchise total. On the other end, Cooley stopped 36 of 39 Orlando shots in suffering the loss.
Orlando is off until when it starts the final stretch with a game in Jacksonville against the Icemen at the Vystar Veterans Memorial Arena at 7 p.m.
Notes: The Everblades went 0-for-3 on the power play in the game while the Solar Bears went 2-for-2. Orlando was 5-for-13 with the man advantage over the weekend set… Luchuk’s two assists allowed him to surpass Eric Faille for most points in a single season. He also went past Joe Perry’s single season mark for shots on net in a regular season of 211 set in 2016-17. Luchuk now has posted 216 shots on net with four games remaining in the season… Luchuk also passed Wichita’s Aaron Beauregard for the lead in the ECHL’s scoring race this season.
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