Premier Eels Dominate on Home Ice with 6-2 Win.
By: Nick Roesch
Fort Myers, FL- The Florida Eels Premier team scored 6 goals from 6 different players to shine against the Tampa Bay Juniors 6-2 on Saturday evening at the Fort Myers Skatium.
The Eels struck first on their initial power play of the game with 6:17 to go until the first intermission. Lukas Aaw was fed the puck from Demeed Podrezov at the center of the blue line, where he jabbed a wrist shot through traffic and into the back of the net.
Quick to respond for the Juniors just 3 minutes later was Paul Flidr at the 17:10 marker of the 1st. Patrik Tuma crept in towards the far post of Eels goaltender Danick Francoeur and then flipped it to the other end for Flidr who tapped the puck into the half-empty net. Both teams would head to the locker room tied at 1 apiece.
2:02 into the 2nd period, Gabe Hemstrom gave the Eels the advantage yet again after Demeed Podrezov set him up from behind the net of Juniors netminder Daniel Kortenhaus. From there, Hemstrom stuffed in the disc from the near post to advance the score to a count of 2-1.
The seesaw battle continued with 9:31 to spare in the middle period as TampaBay’s Tommy Reunamaki found the equalizer with a one-time drive from the low slot over the left shoulder of Francoeur. Derek Walker found him wide open from the near end of the goal line to knot the score at 2-2.
The Eels would eventually grab the lead back after Jace D’Alessandro edged his way in front of the net and flipped a backhanded shot to the top shelf. The Eels’2nd power play goal of the game made it a 3-2 contest at the 13:17 mark.
Yan Kalinovsky increased the Eels’ advantage to a pair after 5 and a half minutesof action in period 3. Kalinovsky rushed into the offensive end on a 2-on-2 chanceand sniped the puck over Kortenhaus’s blocker from the far half-wall for his 15thgoal on the 2018-19 campaign.
With the clock reading 1:11, Lukas Aaw sealed the deal with an empty netter from the far circle for his 2nd tally of the contest. Nikita Pinimyasov collected the assist for his lone point of the evening. Pinimyasov has reached the scoresheet in 12 of his previous 13 games played.
With Kortenhaus back in net for the Juniors, Gage McNeish knifed the puck to the inside corner of the net from the near hashmark for good measure as that increased the lead to 4 goals for the Eels with just 42 seconds to kill in regulation.
Out of the six Eels goals in the matchup, five of them came from defensemen(Aaw, Kalinovsky, D’Alessandro and McNeish). Danick Francoeur (8-2-1) notched his 8th win as a starting goaltender on the season after stopping 23 shots out of 25 faced. The Eels finished the game with a 36-25 lead in shots on goal.
The Eels hit the ice for their final road game of the regular season schedule for their next contest this Friday, February 15th against the Florida Jr. Blades. The puck drops at 6:15 PM inside Hertz Arena in Estero.
