Everblades cough up three-goal lead, fall 5-4 to Royals in game marred by brawl
January 22, 2011 - ECHL (ECHL)
Florida Everblades News Release
ESTERO, FL - The Florida Everblades (25-19-2) staked themselves to a three-goal lead early in the second period, but saw the Reading Royals (24-11-4) engineer a four-goal comeback to pull off a 5-4 victory in a game marred by a late first period brawl on Saturday night at Germain Arena.
The game began well enough for the Everblades as Alex Hutchings and Francis Lemieux tallied first period goals to open a 2-0 lead with just four minutes remaining in the frame. Hutchings registered his seventh goal of the year at 8:06 with a shot from the left circle off an assist by Drew Larman.
Before Lemieux could stake the Blades to a 2-0 lead, a brawl erupted between the teams before a faceoff in the neutral zone. The brawl began after Reading's Brett Gallant and Florida's Alex Imbeault traded spearing jabs at each other. As the fracas escalated players from each team left their respective benches to join in the fight. When the dust settled, six players, three from each team, were ejected from the contest and a total of 107 penalty minutes were racked up by the clubs.
Play resumed with the teams skating 4-on-4 and that's when Lemieux tallied the first of his three goals on the night by skating into the slot from the left circle and lifting a back-hand shot past Royals net-minder Zane Kalemba.
Late in the period the Royals enjoyed a brief stint of major power play time and cashed in when Ben Gordon tallied the first of his two goals at 18:49 to trim the Everblades lead to one as the teams entered the first intermission.
The Everblades came out strong at the start of the second period scoring twice more in the first two and a half minutes of the frame. Lemieux tallied both goals with the first coming just 36 seconds into the period off a nice feed from Hutchings. He then completed his fifth career hat-trick at 2:28 by rifling home a quick wrist shot from the top of the right circle. Phil Paquet chipped in the assist on Lemieux's 20th goal of the season.
At that point the Royals pulled Kalemba and replaced him in net with Mike Hutchinson, and that's when Reading began to turn the game around. Gordon got the comeback started with his second power play marker of the night after a dump in hit a glass support in the right corner and ricocheted through the goal crease and off the post. As Everblade goaltender Bobby Goepfert scrambled to get back into the net from behind the cage, Gordon lifted home his 19th goal of the season at 4:33.
The Royals then cut the Everblade lead to one just 26 second later on John Scrymgeour's first goal of the night at 4:59, and saw Scrymgeour tie the game with his fourth goal of the year at 13:43.
Reading completed the comeback effort 36 seconds later when Devin Timberlake deflected a shot from the right point between the pads of Goepfert at 14:19.
For Goepfert the loss snapped his four game winning streak as he saw his record fall to 17-9-2 after allowing the five goals on 35 shots. Hutchinson ended up the goalie of record for Reading after stopping all 17 shots he faced over the game's final 37 minutes to improve to 4-2-3. Kalemba finished the night with four goals allowed on 19 shots in the 22 and a half minutes he played.
The Everblades finished the season series with a 4-2-0 record vs. Reading.
Individual tickets to all 2010-11 Florida Everblades home games are on sale now! Tickets are available at the TIB Bank Box Office Monday - Friday from 10:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m. and on Saturday from 10:00 a.m. - 2 p.m. Fans can also purchase tickets through TicketMaster by logging onto www.ticketmaster.com or calling 800-745-3000.
The Everblades return to action on Friday, January 28 when they travel to Kalamazoo to take on the Wings at 7:30 p.m. from Wings Stadium. The Everblades' next home game is Wednesday, February 2 when they host the Greenville Road Warriors at 7:30 p.m. from Germain Arena. Visit www.floridaeverblades.com and www.germainarena.com for more information on ticket packages, pricing and upcoming Germain Arena events.
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