ESTERO, FLA – With their backs to the wall, the South Carolina Stingrays needed to come with their best effort of the ECHL Kelly Cup playoffs to date otherwise the season would be over. At a time like this, the Stingrays needed their leaders, especially captain Andrew Cherniwchan, to step up. Sunday evening at Hertz Arena, Cherniwchan proved why he has that “C” on his jersey.
Cherniwchan and teammate Mark Cooper each scored a pair of goals while goalie Hunter Shepard stopped 29 of 31 shots to guide South Carolina to a 4-2 victory over the Florida Everblades in Game 4 of the teams’ Eastern Conference semifinal series. The Stimgrays win evened the best-of-five series at two victories apiece, setting up a winner-take-all Game 5 Monday night in southwest Florida.
After watching the Everblades put on a scoring display in games two and three, the Stingrays flipped the script, blitzing Florida with a three-goal first period that the home team never recovered from. The Stingrays also showed that they could play defense, holding the Everblades scoreless through a pair of five-on-three power plays that totaled more than two and a half minutes of playing time, not to mention having Shepard stop a penalty shot in the second frame.
Florida started off in full attack mode, getting a two-on-none chance less than 30 seconds into the first period. Shepard stared down the situation and whether he made a save or the shot went wide on its own, the scoreboard did not change.
Not long after, the Everblades took a penalty and South Carolina took advantage. The Stingrays worked the puck from Michael Weis down in the corner to Max Gottlieb at the point. Gottlieb’s shot was blocked but the puck bounced right to Cherniwchan who hit the top corner of the net for his first of the series.
Just past the midpoint of the frame, the visitors connected for a second tally. Dan DeSalvo was in the corner and somehow threaded a pass across the low slot to Cooper. Cooper saw Florida goalie Jake Hildebrand trying to go post-to-post and managed to get just far enough outside the netminder’s left skate to tuck the puck into the cage to make it a 2-0 game. Ninety seconds later, the Stingrays pushed the lead to three when Caleb Herbert split two defenders at the point and fed Zach Malatesta down at the base of the right faceoff circle. Malatesta went diagonally across the ice with a pass to a wide open Cherniwchan. All Cherniwchan had to do was redirect it home for his second of the night.
Late in the period, South Carolina found itself down two men when DeSalvo and Tariq Hammond both found themselves in the sin bin. The Stingrays defense allowed just two shots at the tail end of the five-on-three that Shepard stopped to keep the margin at 3-0 heading into the intermission.
The Everblades needed to pressure the Stingrays and they did, controlling the initial 8:20 of the middle period. Florida’s eighth shot of that time frame did the trick as Zach Berzolla followed up the rebound of his own shot and fed Alex Kile who beat Shepard for his second tally of the series to cut the margin to 3-1. Florida had an opportunity to trim the lead to when when Michael Neville was awarded a penalty shot at the 9:15 mark of the stanza but Shepard calmly stared him down and made the save.
Three minutes after the penalty shot, South Carolina again extended its lead to three. From his own defensive zone, Tyler Nanne sent a home run pass to center ice that Cooper tracked down. He skated in alone and was stopped by Hildebrand but the goalie failed to control the rebound. Cooper followed the play and put the rebound in off the right goalpost for his second of the night and a 4-1 Stingrays lead. It was also the end of the night for Hildebrand, who was replaced by Devin Cooley between the pipes after stopping eight of twelve shots faced in 32:22 of playing time.
Florida was handed its second two-man advantage a bit later when both Cooper (at the 14:25 mark) and Cherniwchan committed penalties, leaving the Everblades with just over a minute of five-on-three time. Again the visitors masterfully killed off the Florida power play, allowing no shots to reach Shepard.
Desperately wanting to get back into the game, the Everblades tried to push the tempo at the start of the third but the Stingrays matched them at every turn. Florida did edge a bit closer when Joe Pendenza fired a wicked backhander from the faceoff circle to Shepard’s left that tickled the twine at the 7:11 mark of the final frame. It was the final goal of the game as South Carolina and Shepard were able to put a lock on Florida’s offense to close out the victory and live to play another day.
Monday night’s Game 5 is set to drop the puck at 7:30 p.m. with the winner moving on to a conference final matchup with the Greenville Swamp Rabbits, who closed out Indy on Saturday.
Contact the author at don.money@prohockeynews.com
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