Educated Stingrays triumph in overtime

  • Andrew Miller
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  • Posted: Monday, February 28, 2011 12:01 a.m.
    UPDATED: Friday, March 23, 2012 6:52 p.m.
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There are times to yell and scream, and then there are teachable moments.

Trailing 3-0 after the first period Sunday afternoon, Stingrays coach Cail MacLean saw it as a teachable moment.

Josh Godfrey scored two goals and Trent Campbell got the game-winner in overtime as South Carolina beat Florida, 4-3, before a crowd of 3,070 at the North Charleston Coliseum.

The Stingrays, unbeaten in four games, improved to 32-21-4 (68 points) and stayed within five points of first-place Greenville in the ECHL South Division. The Everblades dropped to 30-25-4 (64 points).

After the lackluster first period, it took all of MacLean's self-control not to go into the locker room and give the players a verbal beatdown.

"Sometimes yelling and screaming is the answer," he said. "Sometimes going in there and really giving it to them verbally is the right thing to do. I didn't think so in this case. I felt like we needed to take inventory and realize what a poor effort that was in the first period.

"I felt like there was a lot to get across, so yelling and screaming wasn't going to be the best way to get my point across. It was really the tale of two teams. A very bad team in the first period and then a pretty good one in the final 40-plus minutes."

Campbell, who finished the night with a goal and an assist, said the beautiful springlike weather in the Lowcountry might have conspired against the Stingrays.

"When it's February and the weather is like this, it's tough to get motivated to play hockey," he said with a chuckle. "We didn't show up in the first period, and Florida took advantage of that. Hopefully, we learned a valuable lesson."

After goals from Alex Hutchings, Matt Beca and Bobby Raymond, the Everblades appeared to be on their way to an easy victory.

"We did a lot of standing around in the first period," said Godfrey, who has 15 goals on the season. "We fell asleep and their power play did well. We came into the locker room and Cail didn't lose his cool, but he let us know that that effort wasn't going to be good enough."

The Stingrays' long climb back into the game started on Matt Scherer's power-play goal midway through the second period. Scherer tapped in a Dustin Stevenson rebound to get the team back into the game emotionally.

"That's what you expect from your captain," MacLean said.

Godfrey closed the gap to 3-2 with a tremendous individual effort. He stick-handled the length of the ice, split two defenders at the blue line and beat Florida goalie Adam Avramenko with a wrist shot with less than five minutes left in the second period.

"I saw Florida was making a line change, and I think I caught them a little off guard," Godfrey said.

Godfrey tied it at 3 with 9:50 left in regulation when Campbell found him wide open in the slot.

"Just a great pass from Trent," Godfrey said. "They didn't see me creep down from the blue line."

Campbell's short-handed game-winner came just 67 seconds into overtime after a bad turnover at Florida's blue line. He skated past Jean-Francois David and beat Avramenko.

"I think (David) was more tired than I was," Campbell said. "I went low blocker (side) and it found the back of the net. It was a great feeling to get those two points. It gives us a couple more points to get closer to Greenville with a month left in the season."

Slap shots

--Maxime Lacroix. David de Kastrozza, Dylan Yeo, Johann Kroll and Jared DeMichiel are all on call-ups to the American Hockey League's Hershey Bears.

--Ryan Del Monte is on recall to Rochester of the AHL.

--The Stingrays signed forward Dave Jarman to an amateur tryout contract.

--Todd Ford was recalled to the Washington Capitals of the NHL on Saturday night.

--Nikita Kashirsky (upper body) and Jake Hauswirth (upper body) were out of the lineup with injuries.

--The Stingrays are 19-7-2 at home and 12-14-2 on the road.

First Period: 1. F, Hutchings 10 (Carlson, Fischer), 5:07 (pp). 2. F, Beca 16 (Lemieux, Imbeault), 14:53 (pp). 3. F, Raymond 5 (McDonald, Hutchings), 18:38. Penalties: Lemieux, F (tripping), 0:42; Pietrus, SC (hooking), 3:44; Lemieux, F (hooking), 6:12; Scherer, SC (cross-checking), 14:25; Pietrus, SC (cross-checking), 19:23.

Second Period: 4. SC, Scherer 14 (Stevenson, O'Brien), 10:34 (pp). 5, SC, Godfrey 14 (Owen), 15:52. Penalties: Tolles, F (hooking), 2:00; Reid, F (holding the stick), 9:12; Jarman, SC (interference), 12:02.

Third Period: 6. SC, Godfrey 15 (Campbell, Scherer), 10:10. Penalties: Scherer, SC (interference), 4:57; Carlson, F (holding the stick), 6:55.

Overtime: 7. SC, Campbell 13 (unassisted) 1:07 (sh). Penalties: Goebel, SC (hooking), 0:27.

Shots on Goal: F 13-6-6-2-27, SC 9-12-12-1-34. Penalties: F 5-10, SC 6-12. Power Play: F 2 for 6; SC 1 for 5. Goalies: F, Avramenko (0-1-1) 34 shots-30 saves. SC, Owen (6-2-2) 27 shots-24 saves. A--3,070.