JACKSONVILLE, FL – The Jacksonville Icemen (3-2-3) showed great resiliency and poise on Friday night as they fought back from a 1-0 deficit to force the defending Kelly Cup Champion Florida Everblades (6-1-0) to overtime at Vystar Veterans Memorial Arena on Friday night. Unfortunately, the Icemen failed to make it four overtime wins in a row and fell to Florida 2-1 on OT. Bennett McArthur was the only scorer for the Icemen and goaltender Chase Wutzke made 22 saves in the loss.
FIRST PERIOD
The Icemen had several quality opportunities on the power play early, but some unfortunate hops robbed the Icemen of the first goal of the game. Instead, Florida found the first goal late in the first period after a luck bounce off the referee wound up going right to the Everblades and it set up a tic-tac-toe play while the Icemen were looking to transition up through center.
SECOND PERIOD
The second period was a back-and-forth affair as the Everblades card the play for the first half of the period only for Jacksonville to carry the play in the second half. Jacksonville out-shot the Everblades 12-9 but could not find the back of the net and trailed 1-0 going into the third.
THIRD PERIOD AND OVERTIME
It took until the final minute of regulation time, with the goaltender pulled, for the Icemen to find the back of the net as captain Bennett McArthur rifled a shot from the right-wing circle with traffic in front of the goaltender. McArthur’s shot beat Everblades goaltender Cam Johnson short side to secure the captain’s second goal of the season and the tying tally with just over 20 seconds remaining. Jacksonville earned the better chances in overtime with one opportunity from Jaden Condotta just deflecting wide of the net. Instead, Florida capitalized on a two-on-one rush to find the overtime winning goal to secure the full two points and a 2-1 victory over the Icemen. Jacksonville will take on Florida once again on Saturday night at 7:00 pm.
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