Blades Defeat Checkers (4-3)

The Everblades have a knack for come from behind victories (it would be nice if they were take a huge lead early and hold on to it kind of team, but who am I kidding?). Anyway, the Blades proved it again last night, coming back twice to force overtime, and eventually a shoot-out. The game sheet can be found here.

The first period was scoreless and neither team was able to take advantage of their power play opportunities.

The second period saw the Checkers take a 2-0 lead on the Blades. Undaunted, the Blades came back a few minutes later with a goal by captain Ross Carlson on the power play. A majority of the penalties were handed out, amounting to a total of 12 minutes. The rest of the period did not see any scoring, and the Blades left the ice down one goal.

A goal 2:40 into the third period, courtesy of Milan Gajic, tied the game up 2-2. The game remained deadlock until 17:53 when a Checkers goal once again forced the Blades to battle back. A goal a minute and a half later by Carlson, allowed the Blades to do just that. With no one scoring in the closing minutes, the game had to go into overtime.

Because neither team was able to score in overtime, the game had to be decided by a shoot-out. Your shooters and the results (Florida went first)...

- Milan Gajic- No Goal
- Aaron Slattengren- Goal
- Shea Guthrie- No Goal
- Tysen Dowzak- No Goal
- Ross Carlson- No Goal
- David Marshall- No Goal
- Chris Capraro- No Goal
- Michel Leveille- No Goal
- Colin Nicholson- Goal! (It's at this point that I need to point out that the ECHL game sheet is off and credits Bayrack with this goal, but my memory and Twitter don't lie)
- Daniel Tkaczuk- No Goal
- Mike Bayrack- No Goal
- Cedric McNicoll- No Goal
- Ernie Hartlieb- No Goal
- Matt Schepke- No Goal
- Mathieu Roy- Goal! It was all up to Becks...
- Tyler Doig- No Goal!

After letting in the initial goal of the shoot-out, Chris Beckford-Tseu was solid. His great saves (from what I could hear via the radio) kept the Blades in the shoot-out, and a goal by Nicholson tied it up, and forced more shooters. This allowed Roy to slip another past the Checkers goalie to win it for the Blades. And Give the boys a bit of an advantage for when they take on the Checkers again tomorrow night.