On Thursday Night, the Florida Everblades took on the Solar Bears in Orlando. The two-time defending champs of the Kelly Cup are going to be an even harder, tougher team to play against this season. They showed it in Thursday night’s game as they were fighting hard for a win. Were they successful in their efforts? Of course, they were, defeating Orlando 2-1 in an epic high-intensity matchup.
Not much scoring occurred in the beginning of the first period; however, at the 10:27 mark of the opening frame, Sean Josling scored on assists from Mark Senden and Zach Tsekos. While there was a lot of physicality and aggression early on in the game, each team had only one penalty during the period. The score remained unchanged for the rest of the first period. The Everblades finished the period leading by one and leading in shots on goal 6-4.
The second period was unfortunately not in the Everblade’s favor as the Orlando Solar Bears managed to tie the score. At 6:41, Orlando scored a goal by Steve Jandric, assisted by Mitchell Hoelscher and Ben Carroll. No other goals were scored during the rest of the middle period, although there were multiple power plays for both teams throughout the 20 minutes; a lot of the penalties were from roughing or fighting.
All loose ends were tied up in the third period as the Everblades struck the back of the net and stole back the lead thanks to Logan Lambdin scoring at the 13:04 mark of the final frame on assists from David Cotton and Sean Josling. All that they needed was some more strong, resilient defense, as well as for good goaltending as Evan Cormier made 43 saves in the win. The game finished in the favor of the defending champs of the Kelly Cup 2-1. The Solar Bears did have them in terms of shots on goal 44-29. The Everblades are still an incredibly tough team to beat, and we can definitely expect to see them put up another hard fight for the Kelly Cup this year.
