Orlando Solar Bears’ immaturity shows in loss to South Carolina Stingrays

The Orlando Solar Bears gave up two shorthanded goals and struggled to get a good offensive push in a 3-0 loss to the veteran South Carolina Stingrays.

The Orlando Solar Bears saw the unthinkable happen in Monday’s 3-0 loss to the South Carolina Stingrays at Amway Center. It had to be unthinkable to them, with the best power play in the ECHL and young legs ready to work hard.

The Solar Bears though just got beat.

The puck found its way behind the power play and to David Pacan twice. Once it was because a Solar Bears player could not jump up and grab the puck to bring it down and prevent the rush. But both time sit was Pacan putting it in the back of the net.

Two first-period shorthanded goals gave South Carolina all the cushion it needed for the victory at Amway Center on Monday, sending Orlando to its fifth straight loss — in regulation or overtime.

As coach Anthony Noreen said after the game, this is as low as this young squad has been. But it is also a sign of its immaturity against a strong team like South Carolina (11-6-1-1, 24 points). The Solar Bears were not able to adjust to the physicality or to the points coaches made on video review.

For the first time, Orlando looked lost and unable to execute.

“To me, it’s very frustrating that the No. 1 thing I had to do as a coach between periods was go in there and motivate and scream and yell,” coach Anthony Noreen said. “To me, if you are this age and you need a guy to scream and yell at you to get you going, it’s a shame. There need sto be some growing up in that room for sure. That kind of hockey is just 100 percent unacceptable.”

The Solar Bears totaled just 22 shots in the game, with half of those coming in the third period. Even with that, the offense looked lifeless. It was a struggle to generate consistent pressure throughout the game.

And even when Orlando had the man advantage,nothing came of it. The Solar Bears missed on all five of their power plays and gave up two shorthanded goals.

The Solar Bears’ consistent inability to carry the puck into the attacking zone and maintain pressure on the defense. Offense has not been hard to come by with this team. Orlando had scored at least three goals in the past five games before Saturday’s loss to the same South Carolina team.

“I think we have to find some sort of combination to get some five-on-five offense. I think we need some help from our defensemen. I think the guys that are quote-unquote goal scorers need to score goals. The message to the guys was it’s really easy to score against some of these teams that don’t have what South Carolina has or what Florida has.”

The Solar Bears are a combined 1-4-1 against the Stingrays and Everblades this season. If those are the teams Orlando wants to compare itself to, it still has a long way to go. And certainly the inexperience is not helping the team reach that high mark.

On Monday, Orlando could not push the puck up the ice and take control of the game. It was always South Carolina disrupting passes in the offensive zone, beating Orlando to the corners to pick up the loose puck or keeping Orlando from getting cleanly out of the defensive zone.

Noreen said the team see what happens when a team scores a shorthanded goal and that can cause a team to tighten up some. The team tried too hard to make cute plays rather than simple ones to get back into the game.

The Solar Bears did have some good moments. The defense gave up only one even-strength goal on a deflected shot from Bobby Shea that went in off of the goalscorer, Brett Cameron.

There were some incredible efforts too from Rob Madore — 24 saves — and even Eric Baier who rescued Madore after a puck dribbled past him and sat in front of the goal line but would not go over.

Orlando largely made it difficult for South Carolina to get quality shots and put pressure on the defense itself. This was just the fourth time in 18 games Orlando had given up fewer than 30 shots on goal.

The Solar Bears killed off a double minor penalty in the second period without giving up a shot. There was effort given through the game.

There just was not precision or execution. Certainly not to score a goal and pick up the win against an experienced team like South Carolina.

That is the maturity the Solar Bears still need to learn.

“There’s going to be ups and downs and obviously this is as down as we’ve been right now,” Noreen said. “It’s obviously on our leadership and on me especially to make sure that we come out of this the right way. It’s tough to go through it. When you feel like you are putting things in, you are teaching, you are doing everything you can, you don’t ask for much back in return. We make it pretty easy for our guys to have succes. We ask them to compete, we ask them to listen, we ask them to represent the jersey, play hard, do things the right way. I expect this is the last time that this happens.”