Walleye ripped by Everblades

The Walleye's Mike Hedden (28) battles Florida's Bobby Raymond for the puck during the first period at the Huntington Center. THE BLADE/ANDY MORRISON Enlarge | Photo Reprints

A rarity occurred Saturday night in the Walleye's game against Florida. Hat tricks were recorded by each team.

Unfortunately for Toledo, the three goals scored by Walleye forward Tyler Doig were the only ones his team would tally. Alexandre Imbeault's three were among seven the Everblades would score in a 7-3 victory at the Huntington Center.

Toledo (18-20-3) lost its second straight after winning five in a row. Doig's natural hat trick gave him 13 goals this season.

With his team down 5-0 late in the second period, Doig scored two goals just 12 seconds apart. The first came on a nice feed from Andy Bohmbach. Then after the ensuing faceoff, Doig banked a shot in off the side of Florida goalie Bobby Goepfert.

Doig finished the hat trick as he scored a power-play goal 1:31 into the third period to make it 5-3. Doig scored the three goals in a span of 3:09. Doig said he notched two hat tricks in his last year of junior hockey. But it was the first of his four-year pro career.

"As an individual accomplishment, it's nice to score three goals," Doig said. "But it's not nice to lose 7-3 in your own arena. It puts a damper on it, and it overshadows it."

Just over a minute after Doig's third of the night, Imbeault completed a hat trick of his own to give the Everblades a 6-3 edge. It was Imbeault's second hat trick this season.

"It's a really good feeling," he said. "The last time I was involved in a game when both teams had hat tricks was back in juniors. So you don't see it often in pro hockey. It's even more fun that our team came out on top."

Florida completely negated the momentum built from Doig's three goals as Francis Lemieux scored his second of the night for the final margin.

"It was a good team effort to lose that hockey game," Toledo coach Nick Vitucci said. "It wasn't just one thing that put us behind and kept us behind. We constantly gave up good scoring opportunities with missed passes and broken plays."

Walleye goalie Joe Palmer faced target practice in the first (21 shots). He finished with 32 saves and fell to 7-10-0. The boo birds were in full effect as Florida (26-20-2), who has the third most points in the Eastern Conference, dominated.

Toledo fell behind 1-0 just 2:51 into the contest before many of the 8,200 fans had taken their seats. Lemieux, who leads the ECHL with 55 points, scored on a one-timer.

Florida struck again with a power-play goal 9:02 into the game and grabbed a 3-0 cushion when it scored on the first shot of the second period. The Everblades converted again with 10:21 left in the second.

Florida continued to pile on with a power-play goal to seize a 5-0 lead with 2:30 left in the middle period.

The Walleye wrap up a six-game homestand Sunday and will try to salvage the weekend when they face the Everblades again at 4 p.m.

"We're a talented hockey team that just isn't working hard enough," Vitucci said. "We have to be a much different team [Sunday]. Look at [Doig's] hat trick. One was a shot on a quick release, the second hit the goalie in the leg, and the third was another quick release where he didn't get all he wanted on it. That is a lesson to the rest of the hockey team to not be so fancy and to just put pucks on the net. It might be a different result."

Doig said the team needs to be more consistent.

"We need to play hard and do the simple things," he said. "That's when we're at our best. We can't turn pucks over, and we need to be more aggressive."

FISH TALES: Toledo fell to 10-11-1 at home. The Walleye are 1-3-0 against Florida. … An average crowd of 5,691 has attended the 22 home games, which is the third highest average in the ECHL. … After Sunday's game, Toledo goes on a three-game road trip and does not return home until Feb. 11. … Toledo fell to 4-14-1 when trailing after one period and 2-14-0 when trailing after the second. The Walleye have given up 12 goals in the last two games. … Toledo was outshot 39-36, and at the midpoint, Florida led 25-13.

Contact Mark Monroe at: mmonroe@theblade.com or 419-724-6354.