ESTERO, FL – The Florida Everblades eliminated the Gwinnett Gladiators in the Southern Division semifinals four games to one. The Everblades will now face their fierce division rivals, the South Carolina Stingrays beginning Friday evening at Germain Arena in Estero, Florida. Florida, winner of this year’s Brabham Cup (awarded to the team with the most points during the regular season), has the home-ice advantage throughout the entire playoffs.
The South Carolina Stingrays had to come from behind in their series against the Charlotte Checkers. After losing their first two games they won four straight, finishing out winning four games to two. They had one blow-out game that helped define their perseverance with an 8-3 win in game five, and never looked back
The Blades and Stingrays have met three times before in the playoffs. They met in a 2002 Division Wildcard game which Florida won, in 2004 in the Conference semifinals, a series which they swept in three games and in 2005 when the Everblades beat the Stingrays three games to one in the Conference quarterfinals.
The teams haven’t played each other since they faced a marathon of four straight games from February 3rd to February 7th, 2009.
This is going to be a very tough series as these teams have had almost identical records against each other this season. Florida and South Carolina have met 12 times and each team was victorious in six games. Florida scored 42 goals; South Carolina scored 41 goals.
STINGRAYS – South Carolina had a number of multi-point players in the first round against Charlotte: Brad Farynuk, Travis Morin, Zach Takar, Maxime Lacroix and Nikita Kashirsky to name a few.
South Carolina primarily played Jonathon Boutin in net and he had an .896 save percentage. James Reimer was also very good as he made saves on over 91 percent of the shots he saw during the playoffs.
EVERBLADES – Florida has seven players who have scored a minimum of four points in the first five games. Those scorers were Milan Gajic, Peter Metcalf, Mark Lee, Ross Carlson, Jacob Micflickier, Andrew Sweetland and Doug O’Brien. Half of those players are defensemen which shows the depth and versatility of the Blades lineup.
Florida played the talented David Leggio in the net for all five games and he had a save percentage of .908%. The Blades are still waiting for the arrival of Anton Khudobin from the Houston Aeros (AHL) to join the team, although that club’s series could run into the mid-way point of this series, even if Houston does not advance into the second round. Adrien Lemay has been acting as their emergency back-up in goal.
Florida’s keys to victory
Florida did win their first round but all of the games were tight. The series against Gwinnett had one goal nail-biters and high-anxiety overtime games. The biggest problem was that all of the games could have gone either way.
Luckily the Blades overcame the stigma of their last Brabham Cup winning season playoff round one, where they were eliminated and in shock for quite some time.
In order to win this series the club will have to strive to play a 60 full minutes every game with equal intensity every period of play The club will have to get out in front fast and stay ahead in order to eliminate having to come-from-behind. The club will also have to pick their battles and stop taking needless penalties to stay out of the box.
There is no argument that the Blades are a very talented and skilled team. In addition to the leadership of Coach Malcolm Cameron, Florida asked former Cup- winning head coach John Marks to act as their assistant coach during the Kelly Cup run.
Meanwhile the Stingrays are going to have to have a goaltender they can count on for the entire series. They are going to have to hope their ability to win on the road, after a long road playoff losing streak, isn’t a mirage. After all, as the team without owning home ice advantage it would be impossible for them to advance without winning in Florida at least once in this series.
South Carolina can relish in the fact they will be regarded as underdogs and do not have the pressure to win placed on them. However, in the dressing room the club realizes they played the Everblades strongly and are certainly capable of winning the series.
If Florida plays their game for 60 minutes and eliminates the unnecessary penalties, they will win the Southern Division finals in six games. It’s going to be a very tough round for both teams, but they will be exciting games to watch.
Contact the author at: sharon.weatherhead@prohockeynews.com
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