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Jul 4, 2022/vol. 75, issue 16
MANY HAPPY RETURNS
Welcoming back former Everblades was a key component in Florida finding the right mix for a championship run
BY DAVE MONTROSE
CAM JOHNSON’S FIRST post-season as a professional ended with him celebrating as a Kelly Cup champion and ECHL playoff MVP.
The Florida Everblades goalie stopped 36 shots against the best scoring team in the ECHL, the Toledo Walleye, in a decisive 4-2 win in Game 5.
“We’re a defensive team,” said captain John McCarron. “We have Cam in the net. As long as we can keep them to the outside, they’re not going to score. We did that in second and third and crushed their spirits.”
Johnson had missed the playoffs in previous years due to COVID cancellation, placement on weaker AHL teams and time on NHL Columbus’ taxi squad, so when the opportunity came in April to rejoin his ECHL mates in Southwest Florida, he pounced.
“So, this year, I got to finally play playoffs,” he said. “I told the boys we’re not losing this thing. It feels good.”
The rest of the team’s core players celebrated what they had been working toward – and falling short of – for years.
McCarron, who arrived in Estero along with coach Brad Ralph in 2016, suffered a heartbreaking loss to the Colorado Eagles in the 2018 final. In 2020, Florida was tied for the ECHL’s best record when the pandemic shut down the league.
“It’s been a long time coming, but this group is unbelievable,” Ralph said. “Our culture beat the X’s and O’s and every hurdle we’ve faced, so all the credit goes to these players, their mindset and how badly they wanted it. Amazing feeling. It’s the best moment of my hockey career.”
The Everblades struggled early this season but turned it on late and continued their scrappy defensive play through the playoffs. The first-round series against the Greenville Swamp Rabbits saw three of the six games decided in overtime. They then swept the Jacksonville Icemen to move on to the Eastern Conference final, where they toppled the Newfoundland Growlers in five.
And, in an indicator of how hockey is growing in the Sunshine State, the team’s leading playoff scorer was rookie Zach Solow.
Solow, a native of nearby Naples, Fla., played for the Everblades’ youth travel team before moving on to junior and college. He had been playing in the AHL with the Milwaukee Admirals in March when he was sent down to Florida.
“They had a lot of guys on the roster, and I wasn’t getting games in,” Solow said. “So they told me, ‘You’ve got to go down to Florida to play games.’ I said, ‘Absolutely. I’m joining Johnny Mac and the boys. Are you kidding me?’ And now we’re champs.”
(Photo Courtesy of the Florida Everblades)