The Orlando Solar Bears committed several unnecessary penalties and paid for it as the South Carolina Stingrays won 6-3 at Amway Center.
The Orlando Solar Bears did not have anyone to blame but themselves for just about every goal they gave up Tuesday night.
The excuses were present for sure — after playing Saturday to end a five-game road trip, the team drove home Sunday and had a day off before getting back to action. There were no excuses for the kind of compounding mistakes they made in a 6-3 loss at Amway Center to the South Carolina Stingrays on Tuesday night.
“When you have a slow start, you don’t just dig yourself a hole by giving up goals, now you are taking lazy penalties, now your D are having to do a lot more work to get pucks out, your goalie is having to do a lot more work, it just wears on everybody,” coach Anthony Noreen said. “We always talk about working as five. When only three aren’t working, it really taxes the two that are doing the work on the ice and vice versa.”
South Carolina scored four power play goals and got four goals from David Pacan. Those four penalties stood out. Mostly because they were completely unnecessary.
Mark Louis got called for consecutive two-minute minors for a high stick and then roughing, going to the box for four minutes. The Stingrays scored twice in the next four minutes with Pacan tallying his first goal and Brett Cameron adding another off a faceoff.
It was those mistakes that cost them time and time again. And even with some recovery, the mistakes kept coming.
“When you have penalties, and you are down to six guys and trying to kill a double minor and two minutes right after that, it wears on guys,” Brett Findlay said. “Our penalty kill has been pretty solid all year and it’s tough when those two guys went down. I think the boys battled pretty hard until the end of the game. I think if you ask any guy in that room, they didn’t give up in the third. That’s all you can ask.”
South Carolina’s third goal was set up on a bench minor for too many men on the ice. An Orlando player was late getting off the ice as the team prepared to attack.
The Stingrays took the lead for good when goalie Rob Madore came away from net on a dump in only to have the puck bounce back into play rather than around the boards. It came out in front to Austin Fyten who scored on the empty net.
To add insult to injury, Orlando had one more bench minor for unsportsmanlike conduct. A penalty coach Anthony Noreen is still seeking an explanation for.
The Stingrays scored on that penalty too with Pacan getting the puck and scoring after the Solar Bears failed on a shorthanded 3-on-1 rush.
Orlando’s mistakes had piled up too much.
“You sprint on the ice, you sprint off the ice,” Noreen said of the first bench penalty. “That’s a lesson, hopefully our guys learned.”
Orlando held its own otherwise. The team just faced such a deficit with the mistakes.
Noreen said he believed after the team’s sluggish start in the first period, the team played well on five on five. He believed his team had better looks. The Solar Bears picked up two second period goals from Findlay and Denver Manderson.
Findlay’s goal was particularly pretty as he received the puck in front of the net cleanly on a 3-on-2 rush, giving Mark Dekanich no chance to stop.
Orlando had its chances in totaling 27 shots. It had some opportunities for sure. But they continued to be fewer and fewer. As the Solar Bears needed that last push to get back into the game, it failed to initiate offense effectively.
Then the penalties and self-inflicted wounds returned and South Carolina used its veteran poise to take over.
It was a hard lesson for a young team to learn. But a necessary one coming home after a successful road trip.
