Solar Bears score an OT win
Heeter helps Orlando take 3-0 series lead
It took a little extra time, but so far so good for the Orlando Solar Bears in erasing the bad memories of last season.
In come-from-behind fashion, Orlando got a short-handed goal on a breakaway from Hunter Fejes with 2:31 left in overtime to earn a 2-1 win and take a 3-0 series lead over the South Carolina Stingrays on Thursday night at Amway Center.
It was the second goal of the series for Fejes, with the other also a short-handed game winner in Game 1.
“It was our second penalty kill of the overtime — [Orlando successfully killed five S.C. power plays] — and we knew we had to put up a gutsy effort,” Fejes said. “There was a huge block by [defenseman] Sean Zimmerman and I just gave it all I got. At the red line I knew I had a step on their forward, who was playing defense, and I got it under the [goalie’s] stick.”
Last year in their firstround ECHL playoff series against the Florida Everblades, the Orlando Solar Bears had a 2-0 lead after winning the first two games on the road.
They were still up 3-1 on their Sunshine State rival.
Florida won the last three games to take the series 4-3.
Orlando repeated the first part of last year’s story with a 2-0 lead — both wins coming on the road — in this year’s first-round series against the Stingrays, which reached the ECHL finals last year before losing to Colorado.
This time, the Solar Bears came through in Game 3.
The No. 1 star of the game was goalie Cal Heeter, who once again had 49 saves.
“Cal kept us in there,” Orlando coach Drake Berehowsky said. “It’s great to have a goalie like that in this type of series.”
It didn’t start out well for the Solar Bears. In fact, it couldn’t have been much worse in the first period as South Carolina accounted for the first 21 shots of the contest before Zimmerman was credited with Orlando’s first shot with 41 seconds left in the period.
“It didn’t like the way we started, but we knew [South Carolina] would have a big push,” Berehowsky said.
Heeter helped the Solar Bears handle the surge.
“He’s the backbone of our team right now,” Fejes added of Heeter, who has stopped 108 of the Stingrays’ 110 shots on goal in three games. “He kept us in that first period.”
Heeter stopped all 21 shots in the period, but the best save for the Solar Bears came with 1:05 remaining when the puck squirted by Heeter and was sitting in the crease, inches from the goal line before defenseman Alex Gudbranson slapped it out of the zone to keep the game scoreless.
“Everybody is just pulling the same rope right now,” Berehowsky said. “All the guys are helping each other out.”
Mason Mitchell put the Stingrays on the scoreboard first with a goal off a rebound 7:47 into the second period, assisted by Nick Roberto and J.C. Brassard.
That lead only lasted about nine minutes as Joe Perry scored for Orlando with 3:14 remaining in the second period off assists from J.J. Piccinich and Jean Dupuy. That seemed to energize the crowd of 6,899 and the Solar Bears as they ended the second period with a flurry, but couldn’t push through the go-ahead goal until 37.5 minutes later.
The Solar Bears will look to clinch their first playoff series win on Saturday night in Game 4 at 7 p.m.