The cream always rises.

That is certainly true of this year’s Kelly Cup Final, where the ECHL’s best team in the regular season, the Brabham Cup-winning Toledo Walleye, are set to host one of the league’s perennial powerhouses, the Florida Everblades. The best-of-seven-series gets underway in Ohio on Friday night, broadcast exclusively on FloHockey. 

These finals mark Toledo’s second straight appearance in the Kelly Cup Final in a “traditional” regular season format—they lost to the Newfoundland Growlers in the Final back in 2019. Florida advances for the fifth time in franchise history (2004, 2005, 2012 and 2018), tied for second-most in league history.

Now a decade removed from their only championship season, the Everblades have been one of the ECHL’s best teams since their inception in 1998, missing the playoffs just once since then, in 2014. 

They’ve won ten playoff rounds since then, including an increasingly dominant run this postseason. After needing only six games to beat the Greenville Swamp Rabbits in the first round, the ’Blades needed a total of nine over the next two rounds to jettison the Jacksonville Icemen and the Growlers to advance to the Final.

While Florida has received a strong contribution from a core group that’s been together for several years now, it’s hard to ignore what Cam Johnson has done between the pipes ever since taking over the net from Parker Gahagen early on this postseason.

The 27-year-old has posted a league-leading four shutouts in the Kelly Cup Playoffs, including one in Game 2 of the Eastern Conference Final against Newfoundland. He leads all qualifying goaltenders with a 1.89 goals against average and .926 save percentage, having earned 11 of the 12 victories Florida has in this postseason. 

Toledo has had a fairly similar path to the Kelly Cup Final, in that they’ve only gotten better since a first-round scare. After being taken to the limit by the Cincinnati Cyclones in the Central Division Semifinals, they’ve lost just once. They swept the Wheeling Nailers in the second round and then needed just five games to get past the Utah Grizzlies in the Western Conference Final. 

And then there were 2. The @ToledoWalleye will meet the @FL_Everblades in #KellyCupFinals22 pic.twitter.com/gJRsNIAL5l

— ECHL (@ECHL) May 29, 2022

Goaltender Billy Christopolous has played every minute in net this postseason for Toledo, and has posted a 2.42 goals against average and .914 save percentage in 16 games. His 994 minutes played is second among all goaltenders behind only Newfoundland’s Keith Petruzzelli, who has 50 more minutes three more games played.

After an overtime Game 1 win for the Grizzlies, Toledo won four straight to win the series, scoring five goals in each victory, showing off one of the league’s most potent offenses. Brandon Hawkins and T.J. Hensick are two of only four forwards with 20-plus points this postseason. Hawkins is second among forwards with 13 goals, while Hensick’s 24 points are good for fourth-best among forwards. 

Two of their lesser-heralded players, Mitchell Heard and defenseman Chris Martenet, scored the game-winners in Game 4 and Game 5 in Utah to close out the series.

How will this series play out? That’s anyone’s guess, as the Everblades and Walleye did not play each other during the regular season this year and haven’t met since a lone meeting during the 2019-20 campaign, won in overtime by Florida, 4-3.

Tune in to FloHockey on Friday night, where two of the best regular season teams all year long will face off to see who ultimately gets to hoist the league’s biggest prize.

Kelly Cup Final Preview: Florida Everblades Vs. Toledo Walleye

Game 1 – Friday, June 3 at 7:35 p.m. ET at Huntington Center in Toledo, Ohio
Game 2 – Saturday, June 4 at 7:35 p.m. ET at Huntington Center in Toledo, Ohio
Game 3 – Wednesday, June 8 at 7:30 p.m. ET at Hertz Arena in Estero, Florida
Game 4 – Friday, July 10 at 7:30 p.m. ET at Hertz Arena in Estero, Florida
Game 5 – Saturday, June 11 at 7:00 p.m. ET at Hertz Arena in Estero, Florida *
Game 6 – Tuesday, June 14 at 7:35 p.m. ET at Huntington Center in Toledo, Ohio *
Game 7 – Thursday, June 16 at 7:35 p.m. ET at Huntington Center in Toledo, Ohio *

(* - if necessary)