It seems safe to say that the Florida Everblades picked up right where they left off last season.

They lead the ECHL’s South Division with 14 points thanks to a 7-2-0 start, and have already received some stellar individual performances to help get them there. But while Florida incredibly has six of the league’s top seven point scorers – Michael Huntebrinker (11), Alex Kile (11), Blake Winiecki (10), Cameron Hebig (10), Patrick Harper (9), and Myles Powell (9) – through this weekend’s games, it’s actually the team’s goaltending that has been receiving the majority of the attention as of late.

On the heels of rookie tandem-mate Devin Cooley taking home the honors, it was Cam Johnson who was named this past week’s Warrior Hockey ECHL Goaltender of the Week after stopping all 27 shots he faced, including two penalty shots, in a 4-0 win over the struggling Jacksonville Icemen on December 26.

Johnson, who at the time of the award was tied for second in the ECHL with three wins and a 1.33 goals-against average while ranking fourth with a .955 save percentage, elected to give credit to those around him for getting off to such a hot start.

“It’s my third year pro, so I’ve got a couple years under my belt, which is nice,” Johnson told FloHockey. “The group of guys we’ve got this year, we had a lot of guys return from last year and we’ve got a bit of an older team, so it’s a group that’s got some experience, and that obviously helps. I’ve got to credit some of that success to how we’ve been playing and some of that leadership group that we have. I think we’ve got a great team, and it all starts with that core group of players and your older vets leading the way.”

Now with an impressive 5-1-0, 1.91 GAA, and .935 save percentage stat line in his first six starts this season, the 26-year-old Johnson brings a bevy of experience in his own right. He was the starting goaltender on North Dakota’s 2016 national championship team, and has 32 games worth of experience at the American Hockey League level in the New Jersey Devils system, not to mention dressing as a backup at the National Hockey League level on several occasions for them as well.

As the affable Michigan native works toward hopefully getting another opportunity at the game’s top two levels, he found himself, as many players did, in a difficult position this offseason in terms of knowing exactly when to get ready and start ramping up his training.

“It was a really weird offseason, obviously a little bit longer than we’ve been used to,” Johnson said. “But for me, there was so much going on in the world and it was all negative. The season ended last year, and there were so many question marks throughout the summer – ‘Are we going to play? Is there going to be a season? What’s going to happen?’ So for me, I tried to drown out all that noise and relax. It was nice to be home and spend a lot of time with family and friends. We don’t normally get that much time, so it was really taking advantage of some opportunities of things that you don’t normally get to do.”

Johnson says he also was able to use the time safely traveling around, going to Montana, California, and Nevada to work at some goalie schools and help pass along what he’s learned to the next generation of netminders coming up. After that, however, it was all business to get ready for the 2020-21 season.

“I think I took it a little bit easier at the start, because it’s six, seven months of offseason, and maybe some guys can, but if you work out hard for that long, you’re going to just kind of blow yourself out,” Johnson said. “For me, I kind of took a couple steps back away from the game and just enjoyed myself. As the summer progressed and we started hearing more, and got the start date, I obviously ramped it up and trained more.”

Whatever Johnson’s been doing, it’s worked. One year after forming one of the best tandems in the league with Ken Appleby, Johnson and Cooley, who is in his first professional season after a standout collegiate career at Denver, have both gotten off to the kind of start that has Everblades fans thinking their team can take care of some unfinished business from last year and take home the Kelly Cup.

“The dynamic hasn’t changed at all,” Johnson said of the tandem changing from last season to this.

“Florida’s got a great thing going down here, and we’re fortunate enough that we have a goalie coach that we get to work with, so we have to give some credit to Josh Robinson and what he does with us. He’s a big help, whether that be drills or just working on something you need to sharpen up, even watching clips from the game or the practice before. Having him around full-time definitely helps out and makes it easier on us . . . he’s there for us and gives us a lot of support. It helps me and Cooley just kind of play and do our thing, we know he’s going to handle that side of it, so we just have to worry about stopping the puck. I think ‘Cools’ and I are a top-notch duo, just like I thought Kenny and I were, so I think we’ll make a lot of noise this year. Hopefully the Florida boys make a lot of noise. But we’ve got a real good dynamic down here for sure.”

Mike Ashmore has 17 years of experience covering professional and college sports. You can follow him on all social media channels at @mashmore98.