Orlando Solar Bears coach Anthony Noreen tried to warn his team and prepare them for the potential trouble of coming home for the first time in seven games and 22 days.
All the momentum of that strong road trip performance could easily dissipate with a bad performance at home. Certainly right off the bat.
No matter what Noreen did, his young team still fell into that trap. The Solar Bears still could not put that 60-minute performance together and still could not defeat one of the elite teams in the ECHL. And so that 5-2-0 road trip became a memory, replaced by the frustration of a 3-0 loss to the Manchester Monarchs at Amway Center on Wednesday.
“For whatever reason, the first 20 [minutes], it just wasn’t us,” Noreen said. “I don’t know how else to say it other than every step we made in the right direction over the last three weeks together in the road went out the window in that first 20 minutes. Throw out what you did offensively, we couldn’t break the puck out of the zone, if you can’t break the puck out, you’re in trouble in the game today.”
Orlando was well off its game, getting outshot 16-5 in the period, slowly evening things up as the game went on, but not finding that breakthrough.
The Solar Bears were giving up shots but seemed generally to be corralling those into decent shooting lanes for Ryan Massa to pick off. They could not generate offense or sustained offense on their end. That has been a theme throughout the season.
Manchester finally broke through though when Alex Guptill got by his defender right in front of net and quickly fed Danick Paquette on the opposite side. He simply tapped the puck in to get past Massa for the game’s first goal with nearly five minutes to play in the first period.
The Solar Bears were searching for offensive momentum from there and could not find it.
Notably, the Solar Bears had one power play opportunity. But they lost the opening face off leading to a short-handed rush for the Monarchs and a hooking penalty on T.J. Foster. Only 13 seconds had elapsed. Manchester was just not making mistakes.
The Monarchs added a second goal in the second period when Maxim Kitsyn brought the puck below the circle gave a simple back pass to Joey Diamond, who blasted the one timer into the net.
Those lackadaisical defensive plays led to the goals and the defeat for Orlando.
“Today’s game, you spot a team two, especially a good defensive team with a goaltender like that, it’s hard to get offense,” Noreen said. “Especially in the third when they put the puck below the goal line. You’re going to have to go 200 feet. They are going to try to box out and keep you from getting to the net. I thought it was more our start that led to everything rather than something we couldn’t do offensively. You end up chasing it, and that’s tough to do.”
The Solar Bears were chasing it and got a few decent looks. Noreen said he thought his teams got the better chances in the second half of the game.
Lindsay Sparks had a few chances when he found space in the slot in front of the goal and just could not get a clean stick on the puck. His frustration was evident after missing his third opportunity.
Those are the breaks the Solar Bears can deal with.
After the first period, Orlando outshot Manchester 20-19. But there were few sustained opportunities on offense overall. Orlando could not control the puck well and get multiple attempts to crack Colin Stevens throughout the game.
The Solar Bears got away from some of the play that made them so successful on the road.
“It’s easy if you start losing to get away from things that make you successful,” Nicklas Lindberg said. “We have a lot of veteran players who know how to get guys in the right mindset and pick guys up. I think we will turn around here and be on a great roll.”
Wednesday, Orlando just did not have it from the beginning.
