The Newfoundland Growlers got another standout goaltending performance from Michael Garteig and tallies from five different players as they downed the Florida Everblades 5-1 in Estero, Fla., Saturday night, giving the Growlers a 2-0 lead in the ECHL Eastern Conference final.
The best-of-seven series now relocates north to Mile One Centre, where Newfoundland will have a chance to close out the best-of-seven matchup; the next three games of the series are set for Mile One, beginning with a contest Wednesday night.
Garteig, who leads the Kelly Cup playoffs in wins (10), minutes (864), and saves (424), stopped 34 of 35 Everblades’ shots on Saturday, including all 15 he faced in the third period.
That followed his 32-save, shutout performance in Friday’s opening game of the series, a 2-0 St. John’s win.
In Saturday’s rematch, Florida went ahead 1-0 on a power-play goal by Blake Winiecki late in the first period, but the Growlers responded with four second-period tallies by Scott Pooley, Josh Kestner, Marcus Power and J.J. Piccinich, then continued to blank the Everblades in the third before getting a marker by Hudson Elyniuk with two-and-a-half minutes remaining in the game and Florida netminder Callum Booth on the bench for an extra attacker.
Booth finished with 25 saves.
Kestner, the game’s first star, and Elyniuk each had a goal and assist. Garteig was the second star, while Winiecki was tagged as the game’s second star.
The teams might use the four days off between games to cool off after bad blood boiled to overflowing late in Saturday’s game. A total of 86 penalty minutes — the majority resulting from seven 10-minute misconducts — were handed out in the last 76 seconds of the game.
At the centre of the friction was a fight between captains James Melindy of St. John’s and John McCarron of the Everblades. Melindy was slapped with a misconduct for continuing the alteration.
