Blades fall to Walleye 3-2
The wins are getting harder for the Florida Everblades to come by these days.
The Everblades lost 3-2 to the Toledo Walleye Wednesday in a showdown of two ECHL division leaders at Germain Arena.
Scott Czarnowczan fired a high shot over Anthony Peters’ stick with 13:44 to play to cap a barrage on the Florida net. Just before the score, the puck slid through the crease. The Blades, trying to clear the puck, instead set up Czarnowczan’s blast.
“We had 100 percent control of the puck and we gave it to them,” Blades coach Greg Poss said.
For Florida, it was a case of out of the frying pan, into the fire. Fresh off dropping two-of-three to a red-hot South Carolina team, the ECHL South Division-leading Everblades faced another streaking club. The Walleye, on a six-game winning streak, hold a firm grip on first place in the ECHL North.
Toledo goaltender Jeff Lerg (2.10) and Peters (2.12) came in ranked fourth and sixth in the ECHL in goals-against average. On Wedneday Lerg, all 5-foot-6, 155 pounds of him, was spectacular. He made stopped 37 of 39 Blades shots.
Peters came up short by comparison, hurt by defensive lapses and the Everblades’ season-long trouble handling the puck in their own end. He gave up three goals on 26 shots.
“We gave up too many scoring chances,” Poss said. “We get beat one-on-one, turn the puck over in our own end we need to be better.”
Poss pulled Peters with 1:14 to go for a sixth skater, but to no avail.
The Everblades, usually slow starters, were all over Lerg early, with 11 shots on goal in the first five minutes. Lerg came up with some big saves, including one where, lying on his back, he stuck up a leg to make the stop.
It was Toledo that broke out on top. Tyler Sikura skated in on Peters’ left, cut across right in front of the net, and just got it under the goalie and across the line.
Down 20-5 in shots after one period, the Walleye were up 1-0 where it counted.
“I don’t think you can do much more in the first period and not come away with the lead,” Everblades forward Corey Cowick said.
Florida’s strategy had been to take advantage of Lerg’s lack of size by shooting high. In the first period, however, many of the shots came in low.
“We just weren’t effective enough on our scoring chances,” Poss said.
Lerg kept frustrating the Blades. Matt Marquardt came close with a puck that didn’t quite get over the line. Carter Sandlak was stoned on a breakaway.
“It was a combination of a hot goalie and us not shooting very smart,” Poss said. “How many times did we pull it to our backhand close to the goalie? That’s a death move.”
That was the first period. Cowick drove it home on the first shot of the second period.
“When you get one, it definitely opens up the play and you get a little more confident with the puck,” Cowick said.
Jon DiSalvatore set up Cowick in front of Lerg 1:36 into the second for his 13th goal this season.
“He’s a good goalie,” Cowick said. “He’s been around this league a long time. He’s had a lot of success in this league. Our game plan was to shoot high going in, he’s a smaller goalie, but he made a lot of good saves. He’s playing in the ECHL and his highlights are on TSN (in Canada) or ESPN.”
“First period we had a lot of scoring chances,” Poss said. “We didn’t capitalize. We’re down 1-nothing. Then, in the second and third periods we played too loose. Gave up too many chances.”
Cowick’s goal seemed to awaken the slumbering Toledo offense. On the power play, former Everblade A.J. Jenks beat Peters with a high shot to put the Walleye back in front 2-1.
“We rotated poorly on the penalty kill. We were chasing too much. Then we had two guys chasing one of their guys,” Poss said. “You can’t make those kinds of mistakes.”
Florida fought right back, with Matt Willows notching his 19th goal on assists by Fort Myers’ Logan Roe and Mark Nemec to knot the score again at 2-2.
The Everblades extended their run of power-play futility to 10 in a row with an 0-for-2 performance Wednesday.
This series is the only time these two clubs meet in the regular season. After games with the Walleye on Friday and Saturday, the Everblades face only ECHL South competition the rest of the way.