ORLANDO, FLA – With one game left before the All-Star break, the Orlando Solar Bears faced a team they had never seen before with its own roster having seen eleven players either leave or come back. What the home team needed was a little veteran savvy and that is exactly what it got.
Stefan Della Rovere (17 white) scored two goals in Orlando’s win on Saturday (Photo courtesy of F. Medina & G. Bassing/Orlando Solar Bears)
Captain Stefan Della Rovere scored twice, Scott Tanski contributed three assists and defenseman Eric Baier returned to the lineup with an assist and a key save as Orlando defeated the Tulsa Oilers 6-4 at the Amway Center. The victory in front of an announced crowd of 7,208 was the Solar Bears second straight winning performance prior to hosting the CCM/ECHL All-Star Classic this coming Wednesday.
“It (veterans stepping up) was big in a game like this. To tell you the truth I was just trying to get used to playing back here,” Baier, who was loaned to the Solar Bears by the Albany Devils on Thursday, said. “Delly (Della Rovere), Manderson and Macker (Carson McMillan) did a great job of being leaders on the team and pulling everybody together and we all pulled the rope in the same direction. I think it was a good step for us and we’ll continue to build off of that after the break.”
Once again Orlando (17-14-3-0, 37 points) was looking at a vastly different roster than it had in its previous home contest as eleven players were either new names or had left due to callups or trade. On the other side, the Solar Bears were looking at a Tulsa team that had given the Florida Everblades all they could handle in splitting a pair of contests in Estero.
Solar Bears starting goalie Garret Sparks, another recent returnee, knew he was in for a busy night when he was forced to make two point blank shots from Tulsa’s Adam Pleskach in the first minute. Not too long after that, Baier went on the offense and set up Jake Cepis for a one-time shot from the slot that beat Oilers netminder Brandon Anderson at the 1:58 mark.
The score stayed that way through the remainder of the opening frame but it was not because of lack of effort on the part of the Oilers (19-18-1-3, 42 points). The visitors thought they had a score midway through the period but referee Stephen Reneau whistled the play dead before the puck slipped in. Late in the period a shot again got between Sparks’ legs and skidded toward the goal line. Baier saw what was happening and got his stick on the puck and cleared it out of harm’s way.
Orlando extended the lead 2:23 into the second when Nick Larson placed a perfect pass across the low slot to Della Rovere who ripped a shot that caught the top corner to Anderson’s glove side. The two goal margin lasted all of 48 seconds before Tulsa got on the board when Matt Larke jammed home the rebound of a Kyle O’Kane shot. In actuality it was O’Kane’s third shot of the sequence with the final one coming from a bad angle and Sparks (45 saves) well out of his net.
The teams then went through a rapid fire session with a combined three scores coming in the space of just over two and a half minutes. Orlando went back up by two just before the midpoint of the frame when Gleason Fournier’s high wrist shot from the point was deflected in by Brady Vail. Tulsa contested the goal believing it was put home by a high stick but the officials did not agree. A little over a minute after that, Tommy Mele took a feed from Jon Booras and beat Sparks to again cut the lead to one.
The blitz of goals finished up at the 12:19 mark when a Tanski pass sent Larson in all alone on Anderson. With a defender closing in, Larson scooped a backhander over Anderson’s shoulder to give the Solar Bears a 4-2 lead they would carry into the second intermission.
“They (Tulsa) worked extremely hard. They came ready to play,” Orlando head coach Vince Williams said about the visiting Oilers. “They did a good job managing the puck. They executed and they’re very good at finding pockets. There are no easy games in this league.”
Tulsa continued to stay in the game, pulling within one seven minutes into the third when Jeff Jubinville drove the Orlando net and buried a shot in the top corner over Sparks’ shoulder. That goal was answered by a Yann Sauve blast from the high slot 28 seconds later, restoring the Solar Bears two score margin.
Drew Fisher drew the Oilers back within 5-4 at the 9:26 mark, going top shelf after taking a pass from Eric Tallent in the faceoff circle. With the crowd getting anxious as the number of Tulsa shots (the Oilers finished with a total of 49) piled up, the veteran leaders on the Orlando bench stepped up and calmed things down defensively. Della Rovere put the cap on the win by forcing a turnover in the Tulsa end that resulted in an empty net goal with 1.1 seconds left.
“I thought in the third period when we needed guys to settle it down a little bit, especially in the last ten minutes, Tanner and Delly and Larson and McMillan and Manderson and those guys did a good job especially in situational plays when they had their goalie pulled and it was a power play (for us),” Williams said. “That’s the expectation of them and that’s why they’re really good in those situations.”
The Solar Bears now will turn their focus to hosting the CCM/ECHL All-Star Classic with the realization that league play starts again two days later. Williams said that even with all the hoopla of the all-star event, the team’s focus is still on the long term goal – winning a championship.
“We have to improve on what happened tonight, like how do we get better, what do we at when we watch video where we were exposed. That has to translate into practice on Tuesday,” he said. “We have to play that way on Wednesday – the way we need to play. We can’t just throw our sticks out there and all of a sudden get into a shinny hockey game and Russian roulette. That’s almost what it was out there (tonight). It’s not fun to watch. It’s not fun to coach especially when we have to use this week to get better all-star week or not.”
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