The Orlando Solar Bears were the ECHL affiliate of the Toronto Maple Leafs for five seasons, but that doesn’t mean it will be old home weekend as the Newfoundland Growlers, the Maple Leafs’ new ECHL partners, take on the Solar Bears tonight and Saturday in central Florida.
Only three players on the current Growlers roster — injured defenceman Alex Gudbranson and forwards J.J. Piccinich and Todd Skirving — played for Orlando last season. Piccinich got into 69 games and Gudbranson dressed for 40 with the Solar Bears in 2017-18. Skirving, recently placed on Newfoundland’s reserve list, actually saw action with three different ECHL clubs in 2017-18 including 19 games with Orlando.
The strongest link belongs to Growlers assistant coach John Snowden, who has taken over for head coach Ryane Clowe, unavailable indefinitely for medical reasons.
Snowden, who has been the bench boss for the first three games of what will be a five-game road trip, was Orlando’s assistant coach for three seasons before signing on with Newfoundland this summer.
A case can be made that Orlando-Newfoundland ties are as strong for a couple of people on the Solar Bears side.
Orlando head coach Drake Berehowsky once played for the American Hockey League’s St. John’s Maple Leafs before moving on to the NHL, where he saw action in 549 games. And the leading scorer amongst Solar Bears defencemen is St. John’s native Cody Donaghey.
Even though Orlando now has an NHL affiliate that makes more sense geographically — the Tampa Bay Lightning — the 22 year-old Donaghey (1G, 8A) was actually assigned by the San Jose Sharks, who had acquired him from the Ottawa Senators in the trade that made Erik Karlsson a Shark.
This is Donaghey’s second ECHL season; he appeared in 54 games with the Brampton Beast in 2017-18, registering nine goals and seven assists in 54 games. He also got into one contest with the AHL’s Belleville Bulls.
After having an eight-game winning streak with a 2-0 loss to the Jacksonville Icemen on Wednesday, the Growlers will look to start a new victory skein versus Orlando (8-6-2),
In Jacksonville, the Growlers had leading scorers Brad Ferguson and Giorgio Estephan back in the lineup after the two rookie forwards were returned by the AHL’s Toronto Marlies, but Newfoundland looked like it might have missed veteran defenceman Kyle Cumiskey, who recently signed an AHL tryout with the Province Bruins. Cumiskey, who had eight points in his last four games with Newfoundland, had been a key cog on the Growlers’ power-play, which went zero-for-four Wednesday.
Providence got defenceman Jakub Zboril back from the NHL’s Boston Bruins on Thursday, but that didn’t lead to Cumsikey’s release. Instead, to make room for Zboril, the P-Bruins cut another rearguard recently brought in from the ECHL.
