ESTERO, Fla. – The Florida Everblades secured a dramatic 3-2 overtime win to establish their lead over the Kalamazoo Wings in their three-game home series in front of a roaring 5,758 crowd attendance in The Swamp.
Despite coming off of a dominant victory Wednesday night to start the series, the Blades fell short to Kalamazoo in the first period after Ryan Cox took a rebounded shot to the back of the Blades’ net at the 16:26 mark.
Although Florida was unable to knot the score, they outshot Kalamazoo 9-5 at the first intermission.
While the second period saw no goals between the two teams, there was a sharp increase in physicality. Anton Malmsontrom and Kyle Neuber were sent to the penalty box, respectively, for two minutes each at 2:29 and 10:54, followed by a tripping infraction from Kalamazoo’s Max Humitz.
After 40, Blades goaltender Will Cranley turned away 13 shot attempts to maintain the advantage and increase it to 22-16.
With their backs up against a wall, Colton Hargrove was able to see past Kalamazoo goaltender Jonathan Lemuix for the first time in the contest but was immediately waved off by officials and ultimately overturned to keep the Blades at 0. However, this changed when Carson Gicewicz responded just 23 seconds later with a shot that reached the back of the net and officially leveled the score at 5:31 in the third period.
In familiar manner,Jesse Lansdell broke through Kalamazoo’s territory to deliver a bar down goal 23 seconds after Gicewicz’s to dramatically take control of the game with just over halfway to go in the closing period.
Kalamazoo defender Joseph Arntsen capitalized on the period’s remaining time and struck four minutes later to not only tie the game once again, but send it to overtime.
In a back and forth battle for dominance over the ice, both teams went shot for shot in three-on-three hockey for almost four consecutive minutes until Colin Theisen clinched the victory with a one-timer assisted by Kade Landry to take game two of their three-game series against Kalamazoo.
After a thrilling 3-2 overtime victory, the Blades will face Kalamazoo once more tomorrow night, Saturday, November 23 at 7 p.m. to finish out their home series before a five-game road trip.
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