It was evident early on Wednesday the dam would break for the Orlando Solar Bears in their 5-3 loss to the Indy Fuel on Wednesday. Throughout the first period the team was struggling to get the puck out of the defensive zone and mount any kind of attack. Orlando tallied just five shots in the period.
It was a preview of things to come in the game and a frustrating evening that snapped a five-game win streak.
The Indy Fuel scored twice in the opening period, breaking through just past the midpoint of the period. Both goals came on great passes, with the second coming from a nice feed from behind the net by the first goal scorer, Brandon Wong, to Alex Lavoie for a 2-0 lead.
“Awful start,” Noreen said diagnosing his team’s struggles Wednesday. “Really an awful 40 minutes. The bottom line is right now we do not have enough skill in our lineup to not check 200 feet of the ice and not to play the right way. We don’t have enough skill in our lineup right now. I think you saw tonight what happens if we get away from our structure, if we try to cheat things, if we try to make moves at the blue line and if we don’t have a jump and a will when we start the game.”
The deficit would grow but that first period set the tone for the disappointing day. Noreen sent a strong statement to his team through the press and probably directly to his team afterward ahead of Thursday’s rematch at the Amway Center.
First periods and getting off to strong starts has been a theme for the Solar Bears throughout the season. At several points in the year, Noreen or the players have commented on their struggles getting going in games. Especially during the Solar Bears’ long losing stretch, the team was finding itself in deficits to dig out of.
The team has to start games better.
“Let’s look at the big picture,” Noreen said following the team’s 5-2 win over Greenville on Feb. 6. “Look at our record when we are leading after one. Our starts need to be better. Not just this one game, but the last 15 or whatever it’s been at home, we need to have better starts and we need to win at home. I think our guys took the message.”
Orlando is indeed 14-1-1-0 when leading after one period. The team is just 5-10-0-3 when trailing. Getting off to good starts would seem like an absolute necessity for this team.
The Solar Bears this year have given up just 45 goals in first periods so far. That is actually the fewest goals the team has given up by period. Where Orlando actually struggles is offensively at the beginning of games. The Solar Bears have scored only 39 goals in the first period thru 48 games. While the team markedly improves as the game goes on with its goal scoring, so too does the opponent. Opponents have outscored the Solar Bears 155-153 this season. That deficit in the first period stands out.
Coming out of the team’s losing stretch through January, defenseman Eric Baier said the team was focusing on getting out to better starts and playing with more energy. They are perfectly aware of the statistics as far as wins go with the first period.
And they are pretty jarring.
The issue with this team though is that the team diagnosed this problem very early on in the season. Even dating back to November, Brett Findlay said how the team starts plays a role in how the team plays overall.
“I think we can definitely get better with our starts,” Findlay said following a 6-3 loss to South Carolina on Nov. 24. “You don’t want to go into a game and be slow and get behind early. When we have good starts we’re a hard team to skate with and we thrive on our energy. Our starts can be better.”
That will continue to be a point of emphasis for the Solar Bears moving forward. It has been so throughout the season.
And typically you can tell exactly how Orlando will play the rest of the game by how those first 20 minutes go.
[…] How the Solar Bears would ultimately play is often determined in those first 20 minutes. And Orlando is used to looking up on the scoreboard in those games. […]