The Florida Everblades dominated the shot count but couldn’t find the back of the net Saturday night, falling 1-0 to the visiting Trois-Rivières Lions in Game 1 of the ECHL Eastern Conference Finals at Hertz Arena.
Despite outshooting the Lions 32-12 and controlling the pace for long stretches, the Everblades ran into a wall in the form of goaltender Luke Cavallin, who stopped every shot he faced to steal the opener.
“We need to reset. Obviously, we need to be better than we were tonight,” Everblades head coach Brad Ralph said. “It’s why it’s a seven-game series. I thought the guys played hard. We were physical, and that showed in a lot of areas of the game, but the ones that matter the most — we weren’t good enough.”
The game’s lone goal came at the 8:38 mark of the second period, when Trois-Rivières defenseman Kyle Havlena buried a rare chance — one of just two Lions shots in the frame — past Florida goaltender Cam Johnson. Johnson finished with 11 saves on 12 shots.
“Obviously we need to get the win tomorrow,” Ralph said. “There’s a level of execution that needs to rise. I thought there was a number of players that need to play better than they did tonight.”
The Everblades struggled to create second-chance opportunities or disrupt Cavallin’s vision — something forward Oliver Chau pointed to as a key issue.
“I think we struggled with taking his eyes away, getting to the net, putting some rebounds [on him],” Chau said. “But I like the way we competed. It’s this time of year — it’s never going to be easy. So we just gotta flush it and come back tomorrow better.”
Florida went 0-for-4 on the power play, while its penalty kill was a perfect 3-for-3. The loss marks the first time the Everblades have trailed 1-0 in a playoff series since the 2024 South Division semifinals — a series they ultimately won in seven games.
“Now that we’ve got three periods under our belt against them, that’s an advantage we got,” Chau said. “We’ll take a look at the video and see how our game matches up and make some tweaks here and there for tomorrow.”
Game 2 is set for Sunday, May 18 at 5 p.m. at Hertz Arena as the Everblades look to even the series before it shifts to Quebec.
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