By Jack Ziskin
ESTERO, Fl. — Michael Bullion made 30 saves, but faced a flurry of high danger chances as the Jacksonville Icemen (14-17-1) fell 5-1 loss on Friday night to the Florida Everblades (24-6-3-1).
Florida scored two breakaway goals — one of which was shorthanded — and a power play goal in the lopsided win.
Will Cranley made 22 saves on 23 shots for the Everblades.
Reid Duke scored five-hole on a breakaway to make it 1-0 Everblades at 1:47 in the opening stanza. Jett Jones tallied an assist on the play.
Jesse Lansdell doubled the Everblades’ lead to 2-0 at 10:41 in the 1st period with Zack Berzolla and Jones picking up assists.
The Icemen were perfect on the penalty kill in the first period.
The Icemen successfully killed off a roughing penalty assessed to Bennett MacArthur at 2:55 and a high-sticking call that went against Mateo Costantini at 17:21 in the opening period.
Holden Wale broke the ice for Jacksonville at 2:03 in the 2nd period with a point shot for his second of the season to cut the deficit to 2-1. Dalton Duhart and David Jankowski picked up assists.
Jacksonville went on the power play at 6:51 when Kyle Betts was called for high-sticking but could not capitalize.
John Spetz was called for holding at 9:22 and put Jacksonville on the kill.
Craig Needham responded at 10:43 of the second stanza with a power play marker to make it 3-1, with Oliver Chau and Anthony Romano garnering assists.
Gianfranco Cassaro made it 4-1 at 16:20 in the middle frame with Logan Lambdin picking up an assist on the play.
Ten seconds after the Everblades made it a three goal games Ryan Pitoscia was assessed a double minor for high-sticking.
Jaden Condotta went mono-e-mono with big Oliver Cooper, and while the 6’0” tall Jacksonville defender didn’t go down, he couldn’t take down the 6’3” Everblades power forward.
Jacksonville went into the second intermission having killed three minutes and 30 seconds of the double minor penalty.
Jacksonville killed the last 30 seconds of the double minor at the start of the second period.
The Everblades went on the kill after Kyle Penney was called for high-sticking at 5:51 in the final frame.
Anthony Romano scored a shorthanded breakaway goal at 7:35 in the 3rd period to make it 5-1.
The Icemen finished 5/6 on the penalty kill, but 0/3 on the power play and gave up a shorthanded goal.
The two teams meet again on Saturday in Estero at 7:00 p.m.
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