The Florida Everblades haven’t had much success against the Greenville Road Warriors, their newest divisional rival this season, going 1-4 against them at their arena. When the Road Warriors visited Germain Arena for three games in four days this past week, they had hoped to bring that stat to 4-4.

It started well with a 3-2 shootout win Wednesday night, but the Everblades failed to capitalize on missed chances Friday night, losing 3-2, and failed on special teams throughout Saturday’s contest in which the Blades fell 5-2 in front of almost 6,800 fans for the annual Teddy Bear Toss at Germain Arena.

“They have a good team, there is no question about it,” said Everblades coach Greg Poss. “Still, we had our chances to tie the game in the third period, but to beat these guys we have to be more focused in terms of taking penalties.”

Greenville was first to score, getting past Blades goaltender Jaroslav Janus (26 saves) a little over seven minutes into the game while on a power play.

Everblades defenseman David Fisher answered three minutes later to the tie it 1-1 to get back into the contest.

In a chaotic second period, there were 13 penalties handed out between the squads. Greenville made it 3-1 before the Blades got another goal to make it 3-2 heading into the final period. Expending so much energy to get back into the contest cost the Blades who, despite having three quality scoring chances in the third period, were never able to fully rebound.

Part of their problem was due to only suiting up five defensemen.

“We had to play some guys on defense who weren’t used to playing on defense,” said Poss, “but we can’t make the type of mistakes we made on special teams. Our penalty kill wasn’t as sharp as it usually is and they have a good power play.”

With the loss, the Everblades (16-11-0) fall six points behind the Road Warriors in the South Division.

The teams drop the puck for the fourth time in a week when they travel to Greenville where the Blades begin a three-game road trip before heading back home for the week of Christmas.