Five Blades players won’t make Pensacola trip

ESTERO -- Five members of the Florida Everblades will not be making the weekend road trip to Pensacola with the team, including one of their hottest players of late, fiery forward Kevin Bergin.

The 24-year-old Montreal native suffered a badly bruised knuckle in his right hand during a fight last Saturday night with Idaho Steelheads and former Everblades forward Greg Hornby right off the face-off in a 4-3 win for Florida. He won the fight convincingly, but had remarked after the game how hard Hornby's head was.

"It's tough to miss these two games against Pensacola,'' said Bergin after this morning's practice, during which he skated in a yellow non contact jersey. "Hopefully the team will get on a roll and win two games in a row, but I definitely want to be back for Greenville next week (Tuesday and Wednesday at Germain Arena). That's two important games because they're right behind us in the standings, so I want to play in those games, they're more important.''

In addition to the 6-foot-2, 200-pound forward, defensemen Ryan Brindley (knee) and Grant McNeill (ankle) and forwards Greg Black (ribs) and Bogdan Rudenko (concussion) will stay behind. Brindley and McNeill both are on the 30-day injured reserve and Black and Rudenko remain on the 7-day.

Bergin is Florida's third leading scorer with 39 points (17 goals, 22 assists), and seemed to spark the team's turnaround as far as attitude over the final two games against Idaho when he fought twice and came up with some clutch goals and assists.

"He's been a roll lately and it's going to be a tough loss, but that's part of the game,'' Everblades head coach Gerry Fleming said.

Fleming did say forwards Reggie Berg (wrist) and Paul Cabana (groin) will make the trip and it will be a game-time decision on whether or not they will be in the lineup. Both players practiced Thursday and participated in all the drills, and said afterwards they felt ready and hoped to be able to contribute.