The Florida Everblades battled their way to a four-game winning streak with a 4-3 shootout victory Friday night over the Reading Royals at Germain Arena.

“The first period killed us, but we just kept our legs moving, kept chipping away, chipping away and it just worked out,” said Everblades veteran Ross Carlson, who scored twice in the win.

The Royals were first to get on the scoreboard contest when Eric Castonguay beat Blades netminder Bobby Goepfert (22 saves) less than 2/12 minutes into the game. Reading continued to press and widened its lead to 2-0 on a power play, and carried the margin into the first intermission.

The Everblades (25-18-2) came out more determined from the drop of the puck in the second period.

The Everblades dominated long stretches of the period, only to come up short of finding the net until Carlson rammed in a shot from out front of the net.

Back-to-back penalties against the Blades within a minute of each other to close out the period proved costly when the Royals took advantage with just 12 seconds remaining to regain the two-goal lead, 3-1.

Forced to start the third period serving the remainder of the second penalty and their backs to the wall, the Blades didn’t allow it to kill the momentum they had built in most of the previous period and came out skating hard and aggressive. The result was a dominant third period in which the Blades scored twice while holding the visitors to just eight shots in the final period.

Fischer tallied first, 7:38 into the period, and Carlson added his second of the night with five minutes left to force extra time.

“The second period we got much better,” said Blades coach Greg Poss. “Then we took the dumb penalties but that is probably what we needed, because that really changed the game for us.”

After a scoreless overtime, Blades newcomer Tony Mosey was the only player to score in the shootout to earn the victory.

The Blades and Royals (23-12-2-2) wrap up the three-game series Saturday night at Germain Arena.