NORTH CHARLESTON, SC – In the wake of a one goal loss in Game 1 of its ECHL Eastern conference semifinal series with the South Carolina Stingrays, the Florida Everblades had every intention of squaring the best-of-five series with an impressive win. Although its started off as a blowout, the Everblades had to hang on for dear life to get the job done.
Paced by goals from five different players, Florida ran out to a huge lead only to see South Carolina storm back. In the end, the visiting walked away from the Carolina Ice Palace with a 5-4 victory on Wednesday night. Zach Solow led the point parade for the Everblades with a goal and two assists while Alex Kile, Levko Koper, Michael Huntebrinker and Myles Powell bagged the other lamp lighters for the winners.
The series, which is now tied at one win each, shifts to southwest Florida for the final three games on Saturday, Sunday and if necessary next Monday at Hertz Arena.
The game itself played out like a Dickens novel. It literally was one-sided for the first forty minutes in favor of Florida before the pendulum swung in the other direction to South Carolina for the final twenty minutes of play. In fact, from a scoring point of view, the nine total goals were condensed into a period of 34 minutes of playing time with the front 16 and back ten scoreless.
Florida dominated the opening period, outshooting South Carolina by a count of 10-3. It was all Stingrays goalie Hunter Shepard could do to keep the Everblades off the board early with a little help when Cole Ully rang the post midway through the frame.
The Everblades took control of matters with a pair of tallies in a span of 59 seconds. The first one came at the 16:10 mark when off of a Stingrays turnover, Kile raced toward the net, pulled a perfect toe drag around a defender and went top shelf for his first goal of the series. Then at 17:09, Joe Pendenza dug the puck out behind the South Carolina net and fed it out front where Koper slammed it home for his second of the series to make it 2-0 after one.
South Carolina had a chance to get back into the contest when a pair of Florida overlapping penalties bled into the start of the middle frame with the home team on a five-on-three power play. A third Everblades infraction 1:38 into the second added to the suspense, allowing the Stingrays to have a full two minutes of two-man advantage time plus some standard five-on-four time but Florida held firm.
The missed opportunity became glaring when Florida struck again. This time it was Cameron Hebig sending Huntebrinker streaking through the netural zone. He easily cleared a defender and got in alone, burying a shot low to the glove side on Shepard for his first of the postseason to make it a three goal game.
Things went from bad to worse for the Stingrays late in the frame when the Everblades essentially put the game out of reach. With about four and a half minutes to go in the stanza, Solow participated in a two-on-one breakout. Carrying all the way, he used his teammate as a decoy, Solow chose to fire a low, hard shot into the back of the net. The final dagger, or so everyone thought, came two minutes and change later when during a power play, Solow set up Powell for a back door redirection of a pass to put Florida up 5-0 at the second intermission.
Now at this point, it would have been easy for the Stingrays to fold the tent and be happy with a split of the first two games. Of course, anyone who is familiar with the ECHL’s South division and the rivalries it has spawned over the years, giving up is not in the vocabulary of any of the teams. South Carolina re-laced their skates and came out with a new attitude to open the third period, starting with Jake Kupsky, who won an SPHL Commissioners Cup with Pensacola not too long ago.
The Stingrays came out ready to go and it showed right away. It took only 52 seconds to work when a shot by Macoy Erkamps was redirected past Florida goalie Jake Hildebrand by Justin Florek to cut the margin to 5-1. A couple of minutes later at the 4:23 mark, a South Carolina power play turned into goal number two when Brett Supinski redirected a shot by Michael Weis home, suddenly chipping the deficit to three at 5-2.
Feeling the energy from the small crowd of season ticket holders that fit into the Ice Palace, South Carolina continued its charge up the hill. Max Novak made the key play, a slick cross-ice feed for a one-time blast by Ully that tickled the twine in the back of the cage to make it a two goal contest at 5-3. Less than a minute later and with a delayed penalty coming on the Everlades, it became a one-goal game when a shot by Dylan Steman was stopped but Tyler Nanne cashed in the rebound to close the gap to 5-4.
Having been caught for four goals in less than half of the final frame, Everblades Head Coach Brad Ralph called his timeout to settle his troops down. They had an opportunity to add an insurance goal when South Carolina took a penalty but the Stingrays held off Florida’s power play to keep the score tight.
With just under two minutes remaining in regulation, Kupsky made the most important of his six saves when he stared down Huntebrinker for a huge save. Seconds later, the Stingrays started to pull Kupsky but a turnover led to the netminder rethinking his move out. The problem was that the skater who was to replace him had already jumped on, forcing the officials to make a too many men on the ice call. It took what could have been an opportunity for a game-tying power play, instead letting the Everblades play keep away and run out the remaining time.
Hildebrand stopped 18 of 22 South Carolina shots in picking up the victory while Shepard took the loss, making 11 saves in his 40 minutes of work while Kupsky was a perfect six-for-six in the third. Both teams went 1-for-4 on the power play in the contest.
Saturday’s Game 3, which begins at 7 p.m., now becomes a must win for both teams with Game 4 set for Sunday at 6 p.m. that for one of them will be a closeout game.
Contact the author at don.money@prohockeynews.com
Follow us on Twitter @prohockeynews
You must be logged in to post a comment.