GREENVILLE, SC – In their first two meetings of the season, the Orlando Solar Bears put up six goals in each contest to beat the Greenville Swamp Rabbits. The first was a sound beating on opening night in Orlando while the second was an overtime thriller in Greenville. Turns out, the third time was a charm for the Swamp Rabbits.
Michael St. Croix scored two goals and added an assist to lead the offense while goalie Jeff Malcolm was solid between the pipes as Greenville (11-11-2-0, 24 points) smashed Orlando 6-2 in front of an announced crowd of 2,472 at the Bon Secours Wellness Arena Thursday night. Jack Combs and Josh Nicholls each chipped in with a goal and an assist to help the Swamp Rabbits hop into third place in the highly competitive ECHL South division past both Orlando (9-8-2-3, 22 points) and Atlanta (23 points) which was idle.
T.J. Foster was the most effective player on offense for the visiting Solar Bears, netting two goals in the third period to make the final score respectable.
Carrying an eight-game streak of road games with at least one point, Orlando was hoping to continue to build on last weekend’s split with Atlanta in which the Solar Bears played much better than they had been. The teams traded body blows in the early going as both netminders – Greenville’s Malcolm and Orlando’s Ryan Massa – traded saves through the first seven minutes of the opening period.
The Swamp Rabbits struck first, turning one of the Solar Bears’ signature situations on them. With Troy Donnay in the penalty box, Greenville’s Rob Kwiet turned defense into offense. Kwiet took the puck in the neutral zone and created a two-on-one rush into the Orlando end. Using his teammate as a decoy, Kwiet drove in and beat Massa for a short-handed tally and his fifth goal of the season at the 7:31 mark.
Massa, who had tried to take away the possibility of a pass before watching Kwiet’s shot zoom past him, had even more bad luck late in the frame. The Swamp Rabbits put pressure on the Solar Bears’ defense leading to a shot from St. Croix that the Orlando goalie stopped. The puck fell into the crease and as Massa tried to locate it, his skate inadvertently knocked the disc across the goal line. St. Croix was credited with his third goal of the season. The score gave Greenville a 2-0 lead heading into the first intermission.
Massa bounced back in the opening moments of the second period, making several saves including stoning Nicholls on a break-in. His effort seemed to spur on his teammates but they were having a tough time solving Malcolm, who was stopping everything thrown in his direction. Even when they thought they might have the Greenville goalie beat, the Solar Bears were out of sync, missing on one-time shot attempts on a couple of occasions.
Malcolm’s best save of the stanza came late in the period when he stared down Orlando’s Matt Rupert and turned away a shot with his pads. Moments later, that save would become even bigger when Richard Nejezchleb got the puck to Combs who found room on the short side for his tenth goal of the season and a 3-0 lead for the home team.
Before the fans had gotten back into their seats for the start of the third, the Swamp Rabbits pushed the lead to four when Bretton Cameron and St. Croix worked a give-and-go with Cameron finishing off the rush with his seventh goal of the year.
Orlando continued to play hard and it paid off at the 9:49 mark when Foster followed the rebound of his own shot and deposited a backhander past Malcolm (30 saves) to break the shutout. If the score gave the Solar Bears any hope of a comeback, it was quickly dashed 49 second later when St. Croix turned a transition counter-attack into his second goal of the game and fourth of the year to restore the four goal margin.
Foster picked up his second of the game and ninth of the season at 12:21 when a shot by Brady Vail deflected in off of the rookie forward’s skate. It would be as close as the visitors would get as Nicholls finished off the scoring with Greenville’s second short-handed tally on a breakaway, beating Massa (28 saves) on a breakaway.
Neither team was effective on the power play as Orlando went 0-for-5 with the man advantage while Greenville was held scoreless on two attempts.
The two teams will face off again in Greenville Friday night at 7 pm.
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