‘Blades clip Stingrays, hold slim division lead
First place still belongs to the Florida Everblades, who got solid play on defense and from goalie Andrew Peters Sunday in a 2-0 win over the South Carolina Stingrays at Germain Arena.
The Everblades (35-19) escaped with a two-point lead in the ECHL’s South Division standings despite dropping two of three games to the second-place Stingrays (32-24) last week.
The tenuous position at the top of the standings won’t get any easier this week as the North division-leading Toledo Walleye (35-19) visit Germain Arena for three games, starting Wednesday and finishing up Friday and Saturday. The Walleye are the last non-division opponent this season for the Blades. The Walleye also are second overall in the Eastern Conference standings.
“They’re every bit as good as South Carolina. They’re one of the best teams in the league, and it’ll be a great challenge for us,” said Blades coach Greg Poss.
Sunday’s win snapped the Sting-rays’ five-game winning streak, a run which resulted in a share of the lead in the division after Saturday’s 5-3 win over the Blades.
“We really played well defensively tonight,” Poss said. “We gave up just 17 shots last night, 15 tonight. They have a real high-powered offense, probably one of the best lineups in the league. We worked hard the whole game and were rewarded by that nice goal by Kevin Lynch.”
Both goals, in fact, came in the last 5:40 of play, Lynch’s icebreaker and Corey Cowick’s empty-netter with 10 seconds left.
Make no mistake. The Everblades needed this one. They had seen a seven-point division lead disappear over the past two weeks, and were threatened with falling out of first place for the first time all season.
So, it was almost a playoff game for the Blades.
“For us it was,” Poss said, “playing a very good team. I thought the last couple of nights we were too lax defensively and made too many mistakes. Tonight we were a lot better.”
The Blades have two games in hand over the Stingrays and one over the third-place Atlanta Gladiators.
Florida plays the Stingrays two more times, March 18-19, on the road.
“At this point we just needed a win,” Poss said. “We needed it for the confidence, and for the guys to see if they went out there and paid the price and paid attention to the details, they’d be successful. It did a lot for our confidence with a real good Toledo team coming in here.”
Peters picked up his 21st win of the season with his fourth shutout of the season, his second against South Carolina. He made 15 saves.
The minutes kept ticking away with matching zeroes on the scoreboard. One period, two periods in the books, and the third winding down. Goalies Mark Dekanich of South Carolina (21 saves) and Peters kept their nets clean.
“We were playing a great game up to that point,” Lynch said. “We really didn’t give up a lot the entire game. I think that was coach’s strategy tonight. We don’t care if we only get one or two chances as long as we aren’t giving up chances on our end. Eventually one will go in.”
Finally, with just 5:40 to play, Lynch took a sharp pass from Jon DiSalvatore, skated in on Dekanich and hit paydirt. It is Lynch’s 14th goal of the season.
“It was a huge relief,” Lynch said. “It was big for our team. We’d been down the last couple of games and need this one win big. It was such a team effort, but it was nice to see that goal go in.”
It was a second chance for Lynch, who was unable to cash in an opportunity earlier on pass from DiSalvatore.
Gabriel Desjardins had a goal and an assist for the Blades Saturday night.
Goalie Rasmus Tirronen was pulled for a sixth skater with 1:16 to play. Carolina’s Wade Epp scored an empty-netter with 27.5 seconds to play to put the game away. It was Epp’s second goal of the night.