ESTERO, FLA – During the 2020-21 ECHL regular season, Florida Everblades forward Levko Koper was just one of many role players who helped the Everblades finish with the best record in the league. He posted a career high in goals and came within one point of matching his career high in that category. That play has carried over to the Kelly Cup playoffs where he has been the big star against the South Carolina Stingrays.
Saturday night at Hertz Arena, Koper took his play to a whole new level and put his team one win away from moving on to the Eastern Conference finals.
Koper netted a natural hat trick as part of five unanswered goals to lead Florida to a 5-1 victory over South Carolina in Game 3 of the Eastern Conference semifinals in front of an announced crowd of 4,877. The win gave the Everblades a 2-to-1 lead in the best-of-five conference semifinals. Florida can close out the Stingrays when the teams play a crucial Game 4 on Sunday in Estero. Saturday’s hatty also gave Koper the league lead in goals scored (5) so far in this abbreviated postseason.
The second consecutive five-goal outburst by the Everblades backed up goalie Jake Hildebrand, who made 34 saves on 35 shots to pick up his second playoff win in three starts.
The visiting Stingrays got on the board first just 2:06 into the opening period. Captain Andrew Cherniwchan was able to set up Justin Florek who beat Hildebrand for his second goal of the series.
From there, the game fell under the control of the Everblades. At the point of Florek’s tally, the shots were four to one in favor of South Carolina. A subsequent penalty on the Stingrays seemed to wake up the home team and they responded when Stefan Leblanc got a wrist shot past South Carolina netminder Hunter Shepard for his first of the postseason to even the score at one.
The final 18 minutes of play in the first period ended with Florida outshooting South Carolina 12-6 and the momentum carried over into the middle frame. Just as they did on Wednesday, the Everblades went on a three-goal binge, the only difference being the tallies all came in the front half of the stanza. At the 2:52 mark, Leblanc lobbed a home run pass that was run down by Blake Winiecki. Winiecki did the rest, skating in and burying a wrister behind Shepard for his first of the playoffs and a lead that the home team would not give up.
Three minutes and nine seconds after Winiecki’s score, Koper began his assault. In the wake of a Stingrays turnover, rookie Zach Solow set up Koper on the doorstep where he tucked the puck into the cage. After another three minutes went by, Hugo Roy sent Koper away on a clean breakaway which ended with Koper lifting a backhander home for his second of the night and fourth of the postseason.
As the final frame opened, the Stingrays found themselves in a similar predicament as they had faced on Wednesday: down big with a limited amount of time to dig out. South Carolina started throwing pucks at the net – the same strategy they had used in Game 2 – hoping for a similar result. This time, however, Hildebrand was in no mood to see the visitors scratch their way back into the contest. The 20-21 Goalie of the Year went into beast mode, turning away shot after shot, making sure that South Carolina had no shot at a comeback of any kind.
Koper put a bow on his hat trick 11:13 into the third when he picked the pocket of a Stingrays player, outwaited Shepard and sliding the puck home. It was Koper’s second playoff hatty in an Everblades uniform and the first of the 20-21 Kelly Cup playoffs. From there, Hildebrand held off South Carolina the rest of the way, making 17 saves in the final twenty minutes to move his team a step closer toward a potential league title.
Whichever team goes on to win the series, they will face the Greenville Swamp Rabbits in the conference final. Greenville polished off the Indy Fuel in four games with a 3-2 win Saturday night.
Contact the author at don.money@prohockeynews.com
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