Close, but no cigar as Blades fall 3-2 in shootout to Pensacola
March 1, 2008 - ECHL (ECHL)
Florida Everblades News Release
PENSACOLA, FL - For the second straight night the Florida Everblades (31-20-7) came up just short against Pensacola Ice Pilots (16-33-7) falling 3-2 in a shootout on Saturday night at the Pensacola Civic Center in front of a crowd of 4,319. The contest was the fourth straight game the Everblades have seen a game move into a shootout.
The result spoiled a milestone night for Everblades captain Ernie Hartlieb who tallied his 300th career point with the game's first goals. The tally came late in the first period with Florida enjoying their second power play of the game. The Everblades moved the puck around the offensive zone with Derek Damon holding the puck in at the blue line, then feed a pass to Hartlieb, who fired a quick shot low to the ice that beat Pensacola goaltender Cam Ellsworth with 9.9 seconds left in the frame. The goal was Hartlieb's 20th on the season and the 101st of his career.
The pace of the game slowed in the second period with neither team controlling play as Pensacola held a shot advantage throughout the frame eventually out shooting Florida 11-7. Despite the sluggish play, both teams managed to tally a goal late in the frame. The Everblades scored the first of the goals to open a 2-0 lead when Kirk MacDonald took a nice drop pass from Preston Callander and wristed a shot from the high slot past Ellsworth at 16:14. The goal was MacDonald's 14th of the season.
The two-goal lead stood up for only 31 seconds however, as Pensacola rebounded quickly to trim the lead back down to one when Bryan Erickson snuck a shot past Everblades net-minder Kevin Nastiuk from the bottom of the left circle at 16:45. The goal was Erickson's 10th of the season and came off assists by Adam Hobson and J.R. Bria.
As they did a night ago, the Ice Pilots battled back from down a goal to tie the contest with a mid-third period goal. Erickson notched his second goal of the night and 11th of the season at 8:10 of the frame after his shot from the high slot pin-balled off legs and eventually off an Everblade defenders skate and into the net tying the score at two.
The score would hold up through regulation as the teams once again moved into overtime. A choppy overtime period saw each team register two shots on goal, and ended with Pensacola on a 5-on-3 power play for the final nine seconds, but the Ice Pilots failed to convert sending the game to a shootout.
In the shootout period, the Everblades scored first with Mathieu Melanson scoring in the second round. The Ice Pilots answered with Patrick Bordeleau scoring in round three to even the shootout at one after three rounds. The Everblades failed to score in the next two rounds setting up Bryan McGregor to be the hero for the second straight night. McGregor succeeded back-handing a shot past Nastiuk from the low slot to tally the game-winner, dropping the Everblades to 4-3 in shootouts this season and improving Pensacola to 2-4.
Nastiuk (2-2-2) collected his second straight tie in the standings after stopping 32 shots in regulation and overtime, while Ellsworth improved to 11-22-2 after turning away 29 of 31 shots.
On the power play, the Everblades closed out night 1-for-4, while the Ice Pilots finished 0-for-5.
Experience the excitement of the Everblades 10th Anniversary season! The Everblades return to action on Sunday, March 2 when they travel to Pensacola to take on the Ice Pilots at 6`:05 p.m. from the Pensacola Civic Center. The Everblades next home game is on Friday, March 7 when they host the Mississippi Sea Wolves at 7:30 p.m. from Germain Arena. Individual tickets to all Everblades home games are on sale now! Stop by the Germain Arena box office to reserve your seat for all the exciting action! Visit www.floridaeverblades.com and www.germainarena.com for more information on ticket packages, pricing and upcoming Germain Arena events.
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