ORLANDO, FLA – Orlando Solar Bears defenseman Matthew Spencer has never been known as a prolific scoring blueliner. The reason why he was drafted by the Tampa Bay Lightning in 2015 was for his ability to set up teammates and play solid defense. Lately, however, he has started to become an offensive threat.
Saturday night at the Amway Center, Spencer lit the goal light for the third time in the last four games to lift the Solar Bears (30-21-5-1) to a 3-2 victory over the Greenville Swamp Rabbits in front of a Military Appreciation Night, COVID-restricted crowd of 3,051. During those four games, Spencer has three goals and one assist to his credit, none bigger than Saturday night’s game-winning tally with 1:27 left in regulation.
Anthony Repaci and Michael Joly had the other two goals for the Solar Bears while goalie Clint Windsor out dueled Greenville netminder John Lethemon to earn his 18th victory of the season – good enough for third most wins in the ECHL this season – and tying him with Martin Ouellette for fifth most wins in a season by an Orlando goalie.
In the wake of Friday night’s overtime loss, the Solar Bears wanted to have a solid start and came less than a minute into the opening period. Just 44 seconds in, J.J. Piccinich stole the puck deep in the Greenville defensive zone. He quickly fed it to Chris LeBlanc in the slot who proceeded to spin a bachkanded pass that Repaci redirected past Lethemon for his fifth goal of the season. LeBlanc’s helper was his 79th career assist as a Solar Bear, tying him with Denver Manderson and Eric Faille atop the franchise’s all-time list for most assists.
The 1-0 lead lasted past the midpoint of the first period until the visitors came up with a response. It came when a turnover at the offensive blueline by Orlando turned into a two-man break in on Windsor. Ben Finkelstein controlled the all the way in before roofing a shot over the goalie’s left shoulder for his fifth and an even score at the first intermission.
There was only one goal scored in the middle frame. It came at the 9:30 mark off the stick of Joly and it was a pretty one. Joly stole an attempted Swamp Rabbits pass in the offensive zone and made a beeline for the net. Joly spun away from a defender and on his backhand, got Lethemon to commit before pulling the puck around the netminder on his backhand and tucked in home for his 14th goal of the season and fifth since joining the Solar Bears.
Greenville had a golden opportunity to tie the score in the back half of the stanza. Orlando took a pair of penalties that overlapped, gifting the visitors 57 seconds of five-on-three power play time. The Solar Bears penalty killers easily erased the two-man disadvantage without allowing a shot on Windsor and gave up a mere two shots in the final thirty seconds of the five-on-four.
The Swamp Rabbits opened the third period aggressively and got the equalizer 1:46 in. Finkelstein was again the trigger man as his teammates worked the puck around the perimeter to him. He blasted a rocket from the right circle that singed the back of the net for his second of the game and sixth of the year.
The next 16-plus minutes of play were tense as both sides knew that even one mistake could decide the winner. Then with just under two minutes remained before a possible second extra period in as many nights, Orlando worked the puck around to Spencer at the right point. He fired at the cage but it did not get through because of the amount of traffic in front of Lethemon. Spencer followed his shot and was first on the rebound and looked for a lane to shoot again. While that was going on, a physical battle in front ended with a Swamp Rabbits player going down and taking the goalie’s skates out from underneath him. Before Lethemon could get back up, Spencer fired over the fallen goalie and scored the eventual game winner.
Referee Alex Normandin immediately waived off the goal, saying that Lethemon was interfered with. He and his linesmen went to video review and overturned the call, giving Spencer his fifth of the year.
The Solar Bears defense buckled down in the remaining 1:27, not allowing Greenville a shot on net in that time and putting the game in the win column.
Windsor stopped 25 of 27 shots in getting the win while Lethemon made 30 saves on 33 shots faced while suffering the loss. Neither team scored on the man advantage in the contest as Greenville went 0-for-2 while Orlando finished 0-for-1.
The two teams will meet for the final time during the regular season Monday night at the Amway Center at 7 p.m.
Contact the author at don.money@prohockeynews.com
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