Blades lose shootout, host Wings in playoffs
Closing out a regular season when battling for playoff position is always difficult. Throw in a divisional opponent battling for the same playoff position and it it becomes twice as tough.
That was situation Saturday night when the Florida Everblades faced the South Carolina Stingrays in the final game of the regular season.
Saturday night’s finale potentially could determine the fourth-place finish in the conference and home-ice advantage for the first round of the playoffs. Given those circumstances, it came as no surprise that the finale at Germain Arena was tightly played. Unfortunately for the Everblades, it resulted in a 2-1 shootout loss.
“We played well,” said Everblades coach Greg Poss. “I felt like we had enough chances to win it – enough quality shots. I felt that we did a lot of good things out there.”
With no shots on goal by either team through the first seven minutes of the first period, the Everblades drew first blood when Matt Beca scored his 22nd goal of the season.
Carrying the 1-0 lead into the second period, the familiar rivals skated to a scoreless period in which both teams dominated long stretches.
Entering the third period, both looked to gain the upper hand. Eventually it was the Stingrays who beat starting Everblades goaltender Mike Zacharias (32 saves) to tie the game 2:03 into the final frame.
In the end, the Blades lost in the shootout, but gained a valuable point toward the overall standings for the playoff seedings.
“It was a fast skating game,” said Poss. “Our guys really wanted to win. We had 7,000 people in the building, but no team wanted to make a mistake with two possibly deciding fourth place.”
The Blades (37-31-4) open the ECHL Kelly Cup playoffs Tuesday by hosting the Kalamazoo Wings at Germain Arena in a best-of-five first-round series.