Trent Daavettila
goaltender Ryan Nie
Looking to stop their climb, the Florida Everblades (26-21-0-2) came to town on Friday night with a 4-0-0-0 record against the K-Wings this season. Before the game, the ECHL announced the suspensions of
Florida players Mike Egener and Elgin Reid as well as Head Coach Greg Poss. The suspensions came after a bench-clearing melee broke out at a game between
Florida and the Reading Royals before the All-Star break. The suspensions along with six players on injured reserve proved too much for the Everblades to cope with, as they struggled all night to win battles and get quality scoring chances on
Kalamazoo goaltender Ryan Nie. Forward Kory Karlander opened the scoring for
Kalamazoo 6:31 into the second period. Aaron Clarke found a loose puck in the goal crease on
Kalamazoo’s third power play of the game to put the K-Wings ahead by two. Two minutes later a fight broke out between
Kalamazoo rookie Justin Taylor and
Florida forward Alex Hutchings after a long stoppage in play, while
Taylor fixed his helmet at the bench. The rest of the game was marred by penalties and power plays for both teams.
Sam Ftorek
Forward Sam Ftorek iced the 3-0 shutout victory with a short-handed empty-net goal in the final minutes of play. Nie made 39 saves for his second shut-out of the season. Nie credits his team for the victory. “They had a couple good scoring chances, but they also had a lot of shots from the outside and the defense tied them up making sure there weren’t second or third opportunities,” Nie said. Poss agreed that his team made it too easy on Nie. “He played well, but we kind of gave him an easy night, as far as not getting a lot of traffic in front of him,” Poss said. “He saw a lot of the shots.”
Kalamazoo continued their winning ways Saturday night against the Gwinnett Gladiators (20-19-2-5), thanks in large part to an effective power play attack. Clarke struck early on the power play for the K-Wings after forward Pat Galivan was whistled for a high sticking penalty one minute into the game. The Gladiators responded quickly with a tying goal from Ian McKenzie, but the victory was short-lived.
Jon A. Landry
Half-way through the period, defenseman Brennan Turner put
Kalamazoo back on the power play with an interference call. During the kill, the Gladiators took simultaneous boarding calls during a fight for the puck in the corner. The extended five-on-three resulted goals from Fournier and Patrick Asselin for a two-goal lead. “You can’t coach that type of stupidity,” Head Coach Jeff Pyle said. “Guys either know better or they don’t. If you’re willing to do that, we deserve to lose.” The whistles continued throughout the game and Gwinnett eventually tied it at three goals a piece with two power play goals of their own.
Florida and
Kalamazoo combined for 44-minutes of penalty time and five power play goals. “I think when [officiating] makes the difference in the game, it’s sad,” Poss said. Kalamazoo Head Coach Nick Bootland agreed, but tipped his hat to the difficulties the referees face. “He can’t see everything, he’s only one person. It’s tough to call the new NHL standard with one referee,” Bootland said. Forward Trent Daavettila scored
Kalamazoo’s only even-strength goal of the game with four minutes left in the second period. Despite seven more penalties in the third period — including a 10-minute game misconduct to Karlander — the score remained unchanged, giving
Kalamazoo the 4-3 victory. Saturday was the K-Wings annual Gold Ice Game. In honor of McDonald’s sponsorship, the ice was painted gold before the game. The game was
Kalamazoo’s second of four colored-ice games this year. “When you get out there and play you really don’t realize what color the ice is, you’re just focused on the play shift in and shift out,” Fournier said. “But it’s always fun to play on different colored ice.” The Gladiators returned to Wings Stadium on Sunday afternoon, exacting their revenge in a high-intensity 5-2 victory. With the score tied 1-1 in the first period, Gladiators forward Tim Miller was pulled down from behind on a breakaway, leading to a penalty shot. Miller shot high blocker-side on goaltender Riley Gill for the score. Forward Akim Aliu, down from the American Hockey League’s Chicago Wolves, made the score 3-1 and chased Gill from the goal in favor of Ryan Nie. “It wasn’t his fault. The shots were 18 to five,” Bootland said. “He didn’t deserve anything. I’m trying to wake my team up, trying to find a way to get them going.” At the end of the first period, the Gladiators held a 22 to eight shots advantage. The rest of the game was more of the same as
Kalamazoo was routinely out-worked and out-hustled. “I yell and scream a lot and sometimes there’s a method to the madness,” Bootland said. “We were so bad that I thought that maybe it would wake our team up by showing a little bit of fire behind the bench and obviously that didn’t work.”
Kalamazoo’s next game against the Toldeo Walleye on Wednesday night has been postponed due to severe winter weather. The game will be played on Wednesday, March 9 instead. Contact the writer
Ryan.Loren@ProHockeyNews.com Photos by
Larry.Burdick@ ProHockeyNews.com Related
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