Everblades fight road weariness
After winning 12 of 13 games in January, February did not turn out as well for the Florida Everblades.
Returning home this week for a three-game stand against the North Division-leading Johnstown Chiefs, the Everblades find themselves entering Wednesday night riding a streak of four straight losses and a disappointing 4-8-1 mark for the month.
“I think some of our problems right now are minor,” Blades coach Malcolm Cameron said at morning practice Tuesday. “We aren’t getting the bounces, (but) we are outshooting teams and generating more scoring chances. I think (the losses are) because of a bad goal that we let in, or maybe a mental mistake that we made which leads to other scoring chances by our opponent, but it’s certainly something that we can rectify.”
All in all, Cameron is not disappointed by the way the team played over the last month. The overall effort has been great, and he said the team’s work ethic and effort has been better than in January.
Without making excuses, he said part of the problem could be the long road trips they have been on this year.
Last week’s four games in six nights with Charlotte and Gwinnett is the third time this season the Blades have had to play at least four games in a week’s time on the road.
“Our road schedule has been crazy,” said Cameron. “It feels like we are transients and it mentally wears on you after awhile.”
The road schedule became even more brutal after the Augusta Lynx folded after just 18 games. When that happened, the Blades’ shortest road trip became a nearly 650-mile bus trip to Georgia to play the Gwinnett Gladiators.
Combined with the fact there are now only five teams in the ECHL’s Southern Division, it means long road trips against multiple opponents over the course of several days, sometimes playing the same team as many as three times over three or four days.
From this perspective, it’s easy to see how the Blades (35-16-3) could be suffering from the grind that is a 72-game season.
“All teams go through stretches like this,” said Cameron, “and we are no different. Nobody can expect us to go 72-0 and with only five teams in our division this year, every team is better We are not panicking. We still have a heck of a good hockey club here and we will go from there.”
The Blades are looking to end the current losing streak Wednesday against Johnstown (31-19-3), the first of three contests over five days.
n Slap Shots: Besides the long road trips, the Blades also are suffering from call-ups and injuries. Ryan Lang is still on the injured reserve list and defenseman Michael Grenzy was placed on the 30-day IR Saturday. The same day Grenzy went down, forward Yannick Tifu was recalled to the Albany River Rats of the AHL.
To help combat the teams travel and mental fatigue, Cameron took a drastic measure in practice.
“(Monday and Tuesday) I respectively told half the team to take the day off and get away from the rink for the day,” said Cameron.
His hope was that the rest will give those players a fresh mindset to get back to helping the team return to their winning ways.
n The Everblades traded forwards Matt Auffrey and Andrew Fournier to the Dayton Bombers Tuesday for defenseman Dominic D’Amour.
D’Amour, 25, is expected to be in uniform for the Blades’ game Wednesday. He split time this season between the Bombers and the Philadelphia Phantoms of the American Hockey League, posting 22 points (8g, 14a) and 68 penalty minutes in 33 games this season.