ESTERO, Fla. – Craig Needham and Anthony Romano potted a goal and dished an assist, and Jordan Sambrook had a pair of helpers, but Cam Johnson stopped all 27 shots he saw to lead the Florida Everblades to a 3-0 win over the Greenville Swamp Rabbits on Wednesday night. The loss puts the Swamp Rabbits to 1-2-0-0 through three games of their franchise-record 11-game road trip.
The Everblades controlled from the puck drop, scoring 44 seconds into the game when Criag Needham slipped the puck past Isaiah Saville after a forecheck led to a net-front scramble, putting Florida up early 1-0 (Anthony Romano and Jordan Sambrook assisted). The trio linked up again with 4:22 to play in the first, when Needham won a draw back to Sambrook, who fired a shot that produced a rebound for Romano to double the lead to 2-0. Cam Johnson, in net for Florida, stopped all eight shots he saw in the first, and then stifled a 15-shot barrage in the second to preserve the 2-0 Everblades lead.
With time winding down, the Swamp Rabbits pulled Saville from his net to try and spark a rally with the extra attacker, but Hudson Elynuik buried his shot into the empty net with 23 seconds to play, tripling the gap to 3-0. Johnson continued to keep the door shut, stopping the final four Swamp Rabbits shots in the third period to push the Everblades to their 3-0 win.
Isaiah Saville made his fifth consecutive appearance for the Swamp Rabbits, fourth by start in that stretch, and stopped 25 of 27 shots in the defeat (8-8-0-1).
The Swamp Rabbits rematch the Everblades on Friday, March 6th, with puck drop set for 7:30 p.m. EST at Hertz Arena.
