FORT WAYNE, Ind. – Buoyed by two-point nights from Jesse Lansdell and Carson Gicewicz, and a seventh straight win by goaltender Cam Johnson, the Florida Everblades scored the first two goals of the game and never looked back, picking up a 3-1 victory over the Fort Wayne Komets in the rubber game of a three-game series Saturday night at the Allen County War Memorial Coliseum.
The opening period was all Everblades, as the visitors outshot Fort Wayne by a dominating 20-5 count and took a 1-0 lead on Colton Hargrove’s fourth goal of the season. Hargrove took a cross-ice feed from Gicewicz and connected with a blast from the right circle at the 17:06 mark, as Florida capitalized on the second of three power-play opportunities in the opening frame. Lansdell picked up the secondary assist.
Just 18 seconds into the middle period, the Everblades offense continued to click, as Lansdell doubled the lead to 2-0. Seconds after the Blades won a faceoff in the left circle, Lansdell got a stick on a blue-line blast from Kade Landry for his fourth goal of the season, with Riese Zmolek also picking up a helper.
Fort Wayne broke through five minutes before the second intermission as a shot by Cameron Supryka trickled into the Everblades’ net, as the Florida lead was trimmed to 2-1 heading into the final frame.
At 6:28 of the third period, the Everblades’ one-goal lead was in peril, but goaltender Cam Johnson preserved the 2-1 advantage with a highlight-reel, behind-the-back save that thwarted the Komets’ best scoring chance of the final stanza.
Alex Kile closed out the scoring for the Everblades with an empty-net goal in the final minute, his third tally of the season. Gicewicz earned the helper for his second point of the contest, joining Lansdell with matching two-point games.
Bolstered by the big first-period advantage in the shot department, the Everblades outshot Fort Wayne 33-25.
A winner for the seventh straight game, Johnson turned aside 24 of 25 shots he faced. Johnson continues to lead all ECHL netminders with 10 wins in his first 11 starts of the season.
With the three-game trip to the Hoosier State in the rear-view mirror, the Everblades are primed for a two-game pit stop in Jacksonville on Thursday, December 5 and Friday, December 6 before returning to Hertz Arena to wrap up that three-game series on Saturday, December 7 at 7:00 p.m. That contest will feature the annual Teddy Bear Toss with a special jersey auction to benefit Bear Necessities. Visit floridaeverblades.com for more information and to purchase tickets.