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Premier Team Celebration after OT Win Over IHC

Eele Premier Make Final 16

We take on Utah at 7:00 pm Tonight

The Eels Premier team defeated the IHC taking it to OT for the 2nd straight game in Nationals. This was a hard fought battle as both teams went hard for over 60 minutes of play. They warred over every inch of the ice surface and the players had left everything they had on the ice. In the end Kiwi notched the game winner in OT and teh Eels gained the 2 points.

Now they await the reseeding

The Eels fought back from a 2-1 deficit to tie the game and in fact take the lead making it 3-2 but the Hitmen managed to get back on the scoreboard and tie it up once again bringing  it to 3-3.

At the end of regulation the two teams went to a Five minute 5 on 5 OT but it remained all even at the end of the 5 minutes. Then the two squads went to a shoot out and the Hitmen best the Eels and won the game.

The Eels earned one point. The Eels return Friday to take on the Rush and Saturday the Northern Cyclones.

No doubt the boys had National jitters but they seemed to find themselves in period 3. We expect to have them back in order for Friday’s game

The Eels Premier team and the MJDP battled the entire game up and down the ice. Both teams fired shot after shot but each team’s goalie stopped each attempt throughout out regulation. For the MJDP it was White and for the Eels it was Duncan Rolleman

The game was forced into OT and the teams went 3on 3 for 5 minutes. The drama was set and the Eels had to kill off a 2 minute penalty no less. But at the end of the OT the score remained scoreless 0-0 each goalie remained Stella.

Then we had a shootout Then Budgell for the Eels cracked the seam and put  one passed the MJDP net-minder to secure the Eels win. 1-0

Florida Eels 1, Metro Jets Development Program 0

Sixty-five minutes of team vs. team hockey was not enough, in the words of The Dan K Show. A shootout was needed to find out who could put a crack in the walls that were the Eels’ Duncan Rolleman (31 saves) and MJDP’s Taylor White (36 saves). Both earn a shutout, though it was Florida’s Kayde Budgell who scored the deciding shootout winner

The Florida Eels want to wish its alumni TJ Zebley and Jake Court the best of luck as they pursue another National Championship for their ACHA Div. 2 FGCU club team. This weekend FGCU competes at the New England Sports Center in Marlboro Mass. That venue will be family turf for Zebley and Court as the Eels played dozens of games while the boys played for us.

Jake Court was a scoring machine when he played for the Eels Junior program. He scored 90 goals and over 130 assists averaging over a point per game.

TJ Zebley had scored over 60 goals and over 90 assists  scoring over a point per game.

Both Zebley and Court were major studs for the Eels. As good as they were throttling the needle and scoring goals they were equally effective in the D Zone being very well known to shut opponents down. They both play with high compete levels. Were both strong leaders on the Eels wearing C’s and A’s during their tenure

Both boys were part of phenomenal Eels teams when they played for us being part of numerous Regular  Season Championships and National Appearances

We wish them the very best

By Joshua Boyd / USPHLPremier.com

Florida Eels

Seed: Florida #1

All games at Utica University Nexus Center, Utica

Seeding Round

Day 1: MJDP, 11 a.m.

Day 2: Islanders Hockey Club, 1:30 p.m.

Make it six Premier Nationals in a row for the Florida Eels – and in the last couple, they’ve made it well past the round robin, so you have that feeling this Eels team is just knocking on the title door every year now. In 2021, they reached the National final but fell in a close 2-0 battle with the Charlotte Rush. Last year, they powered through the round robin, past the quarterfinals and into the semifinals before falling to the eventual champion Rockets Hockey Club – again, a close one at 3-2.

“It’s a credit to the veteran leadership that we’ve had throughout these past few seasons. They’ve done a good job about making newer players feel welcome, establishing our culture and showing how we do things here,” said Head Coach Frankie Scarpaci. “They’ve also done an incredible job of reinforcing our structure. The whole group is really close and I can’t say enough about how hard they work each and every day.”

Go down the roster and look at how many years some of these players have been dedicated to this program – Easton Moore, four years; Collin Patterson, three years; 10 more with two years of Eels experience. These players are not only getting a fantastic junior career of preparation for college hockey, but they are determined to bring a national championship to Fort Myers, Florida.

And these players are some of the top talents in the East Coast portion of the Premier Conference, where every team’s defense and goaltending is tough to the point where you don’t quite see the higher offensive numbers of the western half of the league. Three of the four East Coast teams with at least six players scoring 40 points or better will be at the Nationals – the Eels, Charlotte Rush and New York Aviators. The fourth, the Utica Jr. Comets, won their first playoff round and pushed the National-bound Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Knights to three games.

Further, the Eels and Aviators were the only two East Coast teams to make Top 10 in goals per game to end the season, with the Eels clocking in at sixth with 5.77 per contest. Florida’s scoring depth certainly helped give them a two-win sweep of the Palm Beach Typhoon at the Florida Division playoffs. The depth goes beyond the forward lines, too.

“A lot of players [led the way in the Florida Division playoffs],” said Coach Scarpaci. “That’s pretty much been the case all year, as it hasn’t been just one player but the depth of our lineup. We love our goaltenders. Our defense brings a lot of different play styles together and the depth scoring of our forwards has been the heart of this team. Some games it’s Patterson, others Moore, Damon Kiwaysew, or even on the back end with Kyle Ziemba, Eric Hambling, Brayden Goddard, etc. Our first round was no different.

“I think the team is happy with our series against the Typhoon. They did well testing us with their transition game and I think we got better as the series went on about maneuvering through their forecheck,” Scarpaci added. “I think it was a good first round for us to build off of.”

Second-year forward Devin Shepherd led the Eels in scoring against the Typhoon, with four points. He was one of nine goal-scorers in the series, and there were 15 Eels point-scorers in the series. That matches up well with the regular season, where 28 Eels scored goals and 31 had points, including goaltender Duncan Rolleman. Leading the way this year was Moore at 71 points with Patterson right behind at 70.

Both Rollemann and Tobias Bell finished in the top 20 for goals against average, at 2.25 and 2.41, respectively. In January, the team also brought in former QMJHL major junior goalie Adam Rouleau, who went 8-0 and had a .960 save percentage (but just didn’t play enough minutes over the course of season to be ranked among league leaders).

To top all this off, Kyle Ziemba’s +58 was the top rating for all USPHL Premier defensemen for the regular season. They hurt you at offense, defense, goaltending. We’ll just have to see if any of the Eels’ opponents can find some chink in the armor, because there’s nothing obvious. And an already sharp ax blade of a team is going to get down to a hair-splitting edge with a week of practice.

“It’s the details. Just making sure the little things are clicking. Structure and situational stuff are team by team adjustments, but at the end of the day there’s a ton of good teams,” said Scarpaci. “Its who’s going to execute and who’s going to apply. I believe in this group.”

The Eels will see a tough Metro Jets Development Program (MJDP) with the goaltender holding the best save percentage in the league in Taylor White. From there, they’ll have an Eels vs. Islanders Hockey Club showdown, taking on one of the traditionally toughest New England Division teams. The Eels and Islanders have only met at one Nationals, back in 2018, a 5-0 Islanders win.

“Every team at Nationals will be very good. We’ve done a good job about getting to showcases and playing a lot of the top teams throughout our schedule,” said Scarpaci. “The good news is we have experience, and understand just how deep the league is. We like that our team seems to adapt to a variety of different opponents’ play styles.”

The Eels Premier team swept the Palm Beach Typhoon in two games

Very exciting for the guys This is another key milestone for the Eels as they repeat year after year showing supremacy in the Florida Division. It came with hard work, determination and fortitude. It wasn’t just a weekend of success but 35+ weeks of unwavering commitment that piloted this team. When you train 4-5 hours per day 5 days per week it brings results. The boys are battled tested not in just games but in prep. You win long before you get to the lockerromm on game day.

Anyone who saw that game readily could discern where this team was.

This was a clean and convincing win 5-2

On the way to Nationals