ESTERO, FLA – The Utah Grizzlies defeated the Florida Everblades 4-3 Wednesday night at Germain Arena.
The Grizzlies built a quick 3-0 lead with three goals in the first 5:04 starting 67 seconds into the contest and they never looked back.
“I thought we played a pretty solid game,” Utah Head Coach/General Manager Tim Branham said. “We were good at getting pucks to the net early on.”
Michael Pelech scored his 15th goal of the year 1:07 into the first period after Marc-Andre Levesque held in a puck at the line and sent it to the net with Erik Bradford getting a piece of it on the way.
Cam Reid made it 2-0 four minutes and 48 seconds into the frame as he and Carlos Amestoy crashed the net on a puck sent in from the circle by Ralph Cuddemi. For Reid, it was his seventh goal of the season.
Just 16 seconds later, Austen Brassard tipped a puck home held in by Martin Nemcik after the Everblades won the face-off and couldn’t complete a D-to-D pass to get out of their zone. The score was Brassard’s fifth of the 2016-17 campaign.
Ahead 3-1 at the first intermission, Phil Pietroniro blasted in a puck that was tipped home by Bradford 59 seconds into the second period after Jon Puskar held the puck in. For Bradford, the goal was his 14th of the year and 13th as a member of the Grizzlies.
“We played with good energy and had a good result from it,” Branham said. “Our forwards were rolling there and Phil (Pietroniro) made a nice play on that fourth goal for Bradford to tip.”
Down 4-2 at the second intermission, the Everblades added a power-play goal 6:46 into the third period, but the Grizzlies held on for the win.
Utah goaltender Ryan Faragher stopped 28 of 31 shots in the victory.
Defenseman Gabriel Verpaelst, acquired from Norfolk Tuesday, made his Utah debut and finished with a plus-one rating in the contest. “Good addition on Verpaelst,” Branham said. “That was a good game for him, definitely a good trade to make.”
The Grizzlies are in Orlando Friday at 5 p.m. Mountain time and Sunday at 11:30 a.m Mountain time.
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