Orlando Solar Bears coach Anthony Noreen had one message for his team before the team’s second match with the Greenville Swamp Rabbits on Saturday at the Amway Center.
Win the first period.
Orlando was 12-1-1 entering the game when it leads after the first period. A good start was essential.
There were plenty of other messages that have been sent at various times throughout the season and seemingly reinforced in Thursday’s 6-5 loss to Greenville at the horn.
This young, somewhat undersized team still needed to learn how to be physical and scratch out those ugly goals good teams always seem to find a way to get. The goals that ultimately lead to wins.
This inexperiences squad needed to learn how to play with a lead, protecting it and growing it. Again, making the kind of scrappy plays a team has to in order to win games.
Saturday required all those boxes to get checked for the Solar Bears to score a much-needed 5-2 victory at Amway Center over the Swamp Rabbits.
“That type of hockey is the expectation,” coach Anthony Noreen said. “To play physical and hard and mean and For this to be coming into our arena to be 60 minutes of hell. The expectation is they know they played us. They feel it for 60 minutes. They have ice bags on after the game.”
Greenville certainly felt Orlando’s presence from the beginning both on the scoreboard and physically. The Solar Bears checked off all the boxes they needed to and have struggled with for so long throughout this season.
Orlando won the first period 2-0 getting goals from veteran newcomers Rylan Schwartz and Niklas Lindberg.
The team won the battle physically laying in massive hits feeding of the energy of the 7,969 announced attendance inside the Amway Center, the third largest attendance of the season. For the second straight game Zach Bell dropped his gloves on the opening faceoff and won a fight, producing energy and showing the no-backing-down attitude Orlando has sometimes lacked.
And, most importantly, the Solar Bears held onto that lead. They did not lose a two-goal lead in the third period as they had Thursday. Orlando extended its lead and even when Greenville struck back on a controversial goal from Josh Nicholls, the team responded two minutes later with a rebound wrist shot from Matt Rupert on the power play.
Enough for that two-goal cushion again.
Orlando’s scrappy demeanor and play would finish things off as Ryan Massa stood tall in net with 38 saves, including staving off a six-on-four power play with Greenville pulling its goalie to try to make up that two-goal deficit.
“That’s what we need every night, every game,” said Eric Baier, who recorded two assists. “You keep having games like that and give yourself the best chance to pull into a playoff spot here. That’s what we’re really looking at. Our backs are kind of against the wall right now. You’ve got to come out and perform like that. That’s the feeling that needs to be driven into us.”
Orlando’s playoff dreams certainly would have slipped further away with giving up four points to Greenville this week. Entering the game, the Solar Bears were nine points out of a Playoff spot. Their work is still very much cut out for them with the four teams in the division holding down playoff spots, including the Swamp Rabbits.
This was very much a four-point game and a game the team needed to win and needed to play well.
The kind of play they had Saturday though breeds confidence Orlando can make a run.
The way the Solar Bears played Saturday was resilient and physical. They dictated the terms and sustained offense, keeping possession in the offensive zone and tallying up multiple shots.
On defense, they scrambled well, blocked shots and protected Ryan Massa’s crease, shuttling pucks away from the net when Massa could not firmly control the rebound.
It was a team effort at all times and there were none of the turnovers exiting the zone that had flummoxed the team during the long losing streak.
There was even adversity. The Solar Bears’ lead was cut to one goal when Ryan Massa appeared to save a breakaway chance from Scott Fleming. Massa had the puck under his pad and it was difficult to see, but the referees did not blow the whistle as he tried to freeze the puck.
Josh Nicholls came flying in and jammed his stick into Massa’s pads freeing the puck and sending it into the net.
This could have been a moment, like the early goal conceded in the third period of Thursday’s game, where the young Orlando team folded. Both Massa and the team recollected themselves and struck back.
“I had to think real long and hard just to relax and let it go. I can’t change it and I can’t change the call on the ice. I’ve got to be ready for the next shot. I had to forget about it real quick. They did a real good job pushing us back there at the end. Our guys just played really solid fundamentals blocking shots and [Brady] Vail sealed it with the empty net at the end. Overall, I couldn’t be more pleased with the group effort tonight.”
Two minutes later on the power play the Solar Bears got a shot from the point that bounced out to Matt Rupert on the opposite side. He scored the puck on a quick wrist shot to get the big go-ahead goal and double the lead back to two.
Brady Vail sealed the game with an empty-net goal as Greenville’s gambit to go with an empty net for a power play with five minutes to play failed.
Orlando made it fail with the sacrifice defensively the team made and the brilliant saves from Massa.
This was the way the Solar Bears needed to play. They always needed to play.
“This is all part of the experience you go through,” Baier said. “You have games like the other night where it goes the other way and you have games like tonight where you bear down and get the job done. It’s all part of their careers. It’s embedded in them now and they understand where it comes from. It’s big for us as a team and it develops guys.”
And they finally put it all together.
