Blades edge Royals in shootout 3-2
This is how you earn the captain’s C.
Florida Everblades captain Matt Marquardt scored twice in the third period Wednesday night to get the Blades to overtime, and Florida wound up with a 3-2 shootout win over the Reading Royals at Germain Arena.
Ryan Martindale scored in the fifth round of the shootout to give Florida the game-winning two points.
“That’s a very good team and we got down two goals,” Blades coach Greg Poss said. “We had a few mistakes on those two goals against, but we came back in the third period and tied it, and I thought we even had some chances to win it in regulation. It was our first shootout of the year. That was a good shot by Martindale.”
For most of the night, the Everblades had a big problem. A 6-foot-6 problem.
Reading goalie Connor Knapp, who played 11 games in net for Florida in 2013-14, stoned the Blades for two-plus periods Wednesday before Marquardt beat him top right 1:37 into the third. It was Marquardt who scored the equalizer with just 3:21 left in regulation.
“Those were two huge goals for Marquardt to tie it up,” Poss said, “especially the second one. We really had to battle on the faceoff, and we got bodies to the net and got the puck to the net and in.”
The two goals gives Marquardt seven for the season.
“We’ve got a lot of character in this room,” Marquardt said. “We had some unfortunate bounces and not as much puck luck, but we kept at it to get two and tie it up and win it in the shootout.”
Knapp stopped 32 of 34 shots and four of five in the shootout.
“He’s a big goalie and he played a really good game,” Marquardt said. “I thought I had him (in the shootout) and he put his stick out and got it. Martindale had a really nice goal to seal it for us.”
Everblades goalie Daniel Altshuller had 26 saves in regulation, and was perfect in five Reading shootout attempts.
“Altie stood on his head,” Marquardt said. “Our goaltending’s been our strong point all year. It doesn’t matter who plays, whether it’s (Anthony) Peters or Altshuller. You can play some confident hockey when you know those guys are back there.”
The Everblades dominated the first period, but couldn’t get anything past Knapp. The Royals made Florida pay for that in the second period.
Reading put the game’s first goal on the board at 2:26 of the second. Cam Reid took Justin Crandall’s pass alone in front of Altshuller and lifted the puck over the goalie’s left shoulder.
It became 2-0 Reading less than three minutes later when Scott Tanski fired home the rebound of Yannick Tifu’s shot.
Reading’s Riley Armstrong was down at center ice for several minutes with 13:08 left in the second. Paramedics strapped Armstong to a body board before lifting him onto a gurney and taking him off the ice.
Replay of Riley’s injury didn’t look like anything severe, but the camera had panned away before he hit the ice.
“It’s unfortunate that their player got hurt,” Poss said. “You never want to see it happen. On video it didn’t look like it was anything intentional by our guy. Hopefully he gets better.”
The focus of the game had shifted into the area in front of Knapp, where a fight with Adam Comrie resulted in the Blades’ Corey Cowick drawing two five-minute majors and a game misconduct penalty. Comrie received a five-minute major.
There was no report on Riley’s condition after the game beyond that he was moving his limbs.