ESTERO, FLA – June 1st is the start of hurricane season in Florida but on Friday night, there was a storm of another type blowing through the southwest part of the Sunshine state. When all was said and done, there were 13 goals, 14 power play opportunities, 130 penalty minutes and lots of bad blood to go around but the most important numbers coming out of Germain Arena were these: 2-2.
Led by two goals and an assist from Mitchell Heard and the overtime heroics of Gus Young, the Florida Everblades pulled off an improbable 7-6 win over the Colorado Eagles in front of an announced crowd of 6,881. The win pulled the host Everblades even with the defending ECHL Kelly Cup champion Eagles, turning the best-of-seven title series into a best-of-three struggle.
The win came at a potential cost as Heard was assessed a match penalty for head-butting late in the final frame, which could leave him unavailable for Saturday night’s suddenly all important game 5 at Germain Arena at 7 p.m.
Not wanting to go down 3-1 in the series, the Everblades needed to take a stand on their home ice. That stand started with a solid opening period which saw them weather an early storm by the Eagles before taking control. By the midpoint of the first, Florida had built a 7-2 shots advantage, pounding away at Colorado goalie Joe Cannata with little to show.
Cannata finally cracked at the 11:37 mark when Justin Kea went on a coast-to-coast jaunt. He beat a pair of Eagles players at his defensive blueline and then a couple more in the Colorado end before going five hole for his fourth goal of the playoffs. A little over four minutes later, the home team’s lead grew to 2-0 when an offensive zone faceoff win turned into Stephen MacAulay’s fourth of the post-season.
Throughout the playoffs, Colorado has shown plenty of grit and determination in responding to adversity and the Eagles did so again in the second frame. Taking advantage of a penalty to Heard, the visitors collected a power play tally when Joey Ratelle created a Florida turnover that led to defenseman Matt Register blasting a shot past Everblades netminder Martin Ouellette for his second of the playoffs to trim the margin to 2-1.
Special teams came up big again for the Eagles just over two minutes later. Matt Garbowsky picked off a Florida pass and broke away, beating Ouellette for his second short-handed goal in as many games and his seventh overall tally make it an even game at 2-2 at the 10:48 mark of the stanza.
Needing a response, the Everblades did so quickly on the same man advantage that had just yielded the shorty. Joe Cox was in the right place at the right time to redirect a shot from the point by Matt Mackenzie for a power play tally and his fifth goal of the playoffs.
Heard then began to take over the game. At the 14:54 mark, he collected a cross-ice pass from MacAulay off the boards and whacked it into the open side of the net for his eighth to make it 4-2. Then with 18 seconds left in the middle period, he converted the rebound of his own shot on an odd-man rush, banking it in off the back of Cannata for his ninth and a seemingly commanding 5-2 lead at the break.
In between the two Heard tallies, the game began to take on a hard edge as the Eagles and Everblades started to let their animosity for each other boil over. After an initial sparring match that led to three minor penalties, a fight between Colorado’s Ryan Harrison and Florida’s Sam Warning took center stage with misconduct infractions on the Eagles Nicolas Meloche and the Everblades Derek Sheppard on the undercard.
Colorado replaced Cannata (16 saves) with Sam Brittain to start the third period and Florida greeted him rudely. Just 1:13 in, Steven Lorentz got past a couple of defenders and beat the new netminder to the blocker side for his fourth to increase the Everblades lead to four at 6-2.
The home team had a chance to put even more distance between themselves and the opponents with a five-on-three advantage at the 7:47 mark but failed to do so. It would become an important penalty kill for the Eagles when with nine minutes left in regulation, Cliff Watson converted a power play chance into his first post-season tally to make it 6-3.
The game took a turn at the 15:17 mark when Heard tangled with Colorado’s Ryan Olsen. Heard was called for the head butt, giving the Eagles an uninterrupted three minute power play on which they could score as many times as they wanted. When Dave Dziurzynski took a penalty just over a minute later, the visitors had a two-man advantage and cashed in on Register’s second goal of the game.
Twenty-one seconds later, the Eagles pulled even closer when J.C. Beaudin coverted a rebound in front of Ouellette (20 saves) for his tenth playoff goal.Then with Brittain pulled for an extra attacker to create a two-man advantage, Ratelle scored with 1:58 to go to pull Colorado even and send the game into overtime.
The Eagles had a chance to win it early in the extra period with a carryover power playbut failed to connect on what would have been their sixth advantage goal of the night. That miss, along with Register hitting the crossbar, would come back to haunt the defending champs when Kea won an offensive zone draw to Young who fired a shot that squeezed between Brittain’s legs for his third post season tally and the game-winner.
Notes: Colorado’s Register led his team with four points on two goals and two assists in the contest while teammate Michael Joly picked up three assists…Florida’s Kea (goal, assist) and MacAulay (goal, two assists) joined Heard in the multi-point parade for the Everblades… Colorado through four games is 10-for-24 on the power play with four of the goals coming in 5-on-3 situations… Florida’s power play is 4-for-16 in the four games played… The Eagles were whistled for 68 minutes in penalties in the contest while the Everblades were hit for 62 PIMs… Game six of the series will be played back in Colorado on Wednesday, June 6th with a potential game 7 set for next Saturday (June 9th) in Estero.
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