GREENVILLE, SC – Throughout the 2020-21 ECHL regular season, the Greenville Swamp Rabbits played consistently both at home and on the road. Following a less than rousing effort in Game 1 of the Kelly Cup Eastern conference final, Greenville needed to find some of that home cooking success on Friday night if it did not want to fall into an 0-2 hole against the South Carolina Stingrays.
Suffice it to say that the Swamp Rabbits found their game and took advantage of it to get a much needed win.
Led by a three-point night from Garrett Thompson goals from five different players, Greenville responded to South Carolina’s home victory on Wednesday with a rock solid 5-2 win over the Stingrays Friday night at the Bon Secours Wellness Arena. Five different players lit the goal light for the Swamp Rabbits while goalie John Lethemon stood tall between the pipes, stopping 36 of 38 shots including 27 over the final 40 minutes of play.
The win evened the best-of-five conference final series at one game each, setting up a huge Game 3 Saturday night in Greenville.
There was little doubt that Greenville had no intentions of losing a second straight contest to its South Division rival. The Swamp Rabbits were engaged from the opening puck drop, sending every shot they could at South Carolina netminder Hunter Shepard, who had frustrated them on Wednesday, looking for a way to rattle the Stingrays goalie.
Greenville did get to Shepard twice in the first nine minutes of the opening period. The lid-lifting goal came at the 4:10 mark during a run of six straight shots recorded by the home team while South Carolina failed to post even one shot. From below the goal line, Graham Knott sent the puck to Luke Martin in the faceoff circle to Shepard’s left. He drifted toward the boards and put a shot on net that the goalie stopped. The rebound got just far enough away from the crease for Shawn Cameron to poke it between Shepard’s legs for his third postseason tally and the early lead.
A touch over four minutes later, the Swamp Rabbits struck again with a power play goal. The puck was worked around the perimeter to Knott who fired toward the slot. The drive never got to the net as Frank DiChiara had it go right to his stick and quickly passed to Thompson at the side of the crease. Thompson moved past the outstretch right pad of Shepard and from the goal line right banked a shot off the netminder for his first of the playoffs and the series for a two goal lead less than nine minutes into the game.
The two goals by the home team seemed to light a fire under the visitors from North Charleston. Two minutes and change after the Thompson score, South Carolina cut the deficit in half. Macoy Erkamps made the key play, lunging with his stick fully extended to keep the puck in the Greenville defensive zone. He turned and fired at the net front where Brett Supinski redirected the drive, making it take a hard skip and careening past Lethemon for Supinski’s second of the post season.
Feeling a surge of energy from their first tally of the game, the Stingrays continued to battle and at 14:23 they came up with the equalizer. Mark Cooper put the puck on Erkamps’ stick blade at the blueline for a shot at the cage. While that was going on, Dan DeSalvo was battling hard in front of the net, looking for a penalty and at the same time creating a screen in front of Lethemon. The goalie never saw Erkamps’ shot until it was past him for the defenseman’s first goal of the playoffs.
The score remained even through the remainder of the first frame and into the early stages of the second. Just after the teams finished a stretch of four-on-four play 6:22 in, Greenville found itself on its second man advantage of the game. On a rush, Thompson handed off to Greg Meireles who confidently went on the attack, turning a defenseman inside out to gain room in the circle to Shepard’s left. Meireles fired a shot that seemed to catch the Stingrays goalie off-guard, sailing past Shepard’s catching glove and inside the left post for his second postseason tally and a lead that the Swamp Rabbits would not give up.
Sensing an opportunity to go in for the kill, Greenville made the most of its opportunities to put the game out of reach early in the third period. At the 2:59 mark, a long stretch pass from Frank Hora in the Swamp Rabbits defensive zone connected with David Broll at center ice. Skating ahead of everyone, Broll got to the mid-slot area and wired one short side glove hand into the back of the cage for his first and a 4-2 lead. Just over a minute later, some patient puck movement out high led Ben Finkelstein to feed Samuel Jardine at the left point. Jardine nailed a bomb that went cross-body on Shepard, hitting the twine goalie left for the blueliner’s first and a three-goal lead.
There was still almost 16 minutes of regulation time to play for South Carolina to work with but Lethemon had other ideas. After blanking the Stingrays on 11 shots in the middle frame, the Swamp Rabbits netminder was even further into his “zone”. He faced a total of 16 shots from the Stingrays in the final twenty minutes, turning them all away. Among his best were a pair of breakaway-denying stops, one on Andrew Cherniwchan and the other on DeSalvo, to maintain the lead.
Shepard, who finished the night with 29 saves, was pulled with 3:39 remaining for an extra attacker but Greenville held the Stingrays to a mere two shots in the closing moments to claim the win.
The Swamp Rabbits victory guaranteed that a game 4 in the series will be needed on Monday back at the Carolina Ice Palace. The winner of Game 3 on Saturday will have a chance to punch a ticket to the Kelly Cup Final series that will begin later next week.
Saturday’s all-important contest at the Bon Secours Wellness Arena is set for a 7:05 p.m. puck drop.
Contact the author at don.money@prohockeynews.com
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