The season may be young, but for the Florida Everblades it’s been all about trends.

To open the season, they followed every good performance with a bad one, but since have developed a new trend: dominating the second period.

Such was the case in the Blades 3-1 win Friday night over the Gwinnett Gladiators at Germain Arena. For the third straight game, the Blades scored at least three goals in the middle period, propelling them to the top of the ECHL’s South Division standings.

“I think our guys just really wanted to bear down there in the second period,” said Blades coach Malcolm Cameron. “We had a real good first period. The guys had some good chances, hit a couple of posts, but I think the guys just wanted to make sure that you bear down because you don’t want it to be one of those games that you get all these scoring chances and can’t find the back of the net.”

Yannick Tifu started the scoring in the second period when Earnie Hartlieb fed him a pretty centering pass in front of the net, beating Kevin Nastiuk (26 saves).

Under six minutes later, Danick Bouchard scored his fifth goal of the year off a pass by Ross Carlson.

Forward Mathieu Roy rounded out the scoring blitz with the eventual game winner.

The Blades will go for their third straight win over the Gladiators Saturday night at Germain Arena.