Silvertips Drop Nine Goals and a Shutout On Rival Thunderbirds on Local Heroes Night
EVERETT RAN SEATTLE OUT OF THE BUILDING AND JUST ABOUT ONTO I-5 IN A "ROUTE TO REMEMBER"™
A return after a multi-week absence. A night to honor local first responders. A matchup against their #1 rivals. A rowdy capacity-crowd eagerly awaited the puck drop in this highly anticipated matchup. After the pregame festivities ended - which included local police and fire rappelling down from the scoreboard to deliver game pucks - the play began with palpable excitement.
The Slivertips dominated the first period; but Seattle did a good job of mitigating the damage to just a one goal deficit. They kept Everett in low danger areas within the offensive zone, thanks mostly to the overall size of the team. Vlooswyk came out like our best checker - something we haven’t really seen him this far. A scary moment occured about 15 minutes in when Sklenicka got run into by Heslop (who may have been tripped as well). He looked severely injured as the T-Birds trainer had him test his basic dexterity skills and he was VERY gingerly helped off the ice. Grayson Malinoski came in relief. Shortly after he entered - Finnish import and Prospect Team West representative Matias Vanhanen would open the scoring. He scored on a rebound goal that he craftfully toe-dragged around Malinoski’s pad and buried into the wide open net, exhibiting tremendous patience in scoring the go-ahead goal
The second period mirrored a lot of what we saw in the first period, the Tips again dominated possession of the puck but this time got it into the high leverage spots. Kudos to Malinoski for making some pretty clutch saves in the second to really keep them in the game. The only goal of the period would come from Carter Bear on his signature shot, a one timer from the slot.
Everett did take two penalties on the period which gave Seattle and the number one goal score in the league four minutes to try to be some damage - but their PK would hold up well.
The third period was. . . A different story. It seemed like a close game, that despite the shot differential, any team could come out victorious with a strong start to the period. But I don’t think anyone expected a historic period.
The play of the game, maybe play of the year occurred early on in the frame. Tarin Smith and Cameron Schmidt were tangled up and after Schmidt tried to get physical - Smith shoved him HARD onto the ice before proceeding to skate up ice and receive a perfect pass from DuPont leading him to a breakaway. The pride of Porcupine Plains, Saskatchewan buried the breakaway opportunity fully crushing the optimism of the T-Birds coming out of intermission and sending Schmidt into a very visible spiral.
There was a marked differenced in the demeanor before and after Smith’s goal despite it only giving Everett a 3-0 lead. For Everett’s captain to dish out some serious physicality to Seattle’s best player and IMMEDIATELY go on to score a goal - just demonstrated the difference between the teams. This goal would open the floodgates and Everett would score SIX more goals in the third period.
Kaplan would score on a toe-drag similar to Vanhanen’s goal in the first to open the lead to four. Bear then scored a one-time slapshot goal (aka his signature) on the powerplay for Everett’s third goal in less than three minutes which brought the lead to 5-0. The future Detroit Red Wing than sent hats flying with a tap-in after Vanhanen crept all the way down and finessed it across.
At that point - the score was 6-0 with 13 minutes left. T-Birds coach Matt O'Dette called timeout to stop the bleeding and not let the game get out of control. That failed.
Vaughan scored a hilarious goal in which he got a breakaway and made a move on goal to which Malinoski initially stopped. However the T-Birds defender tripped Vaughan who barreled into Malinoski which pushed the puck into the net for the goal - his 20th of the season.
Kaplan would score the eighth goal of the game - one which I didn’t even see occur. It was 27 seconds after Vaughan’s and they didn’t even do a celebratory goal line because it was such a blowout - AND the PA announcer initially credited Luke Vlooswyk with the goal.
To cap off the game - 16 year old Mirco Dufour potted his first home goal of his career with a wicked one-timer on the powerplay.
Everett’s seven goals in the third period broke the record for most goals in a period in Franchise history previously held at 5 goals.
@TheTipsJar on Twitter Observations:
Luke Vlooswyk set the tone for this one with four hard hit before the first media timeout - which really helped make up for the loss of Clarke Schaefer’s physicality
We hadn’t really seen this uber-agreessive side of Vlooswyk yet and if he plays like that consistently, it gives a whole other layer to this Tips defensive corps
Matias Uyeda was the target of a lot of T-Birds aggression and gameplan in the first period, they targeted him with physicality and dictated/planned a lot of plays at him. He did a fantastic job of keeping his composure and playing smart and disciplined hockey and actually led to a number of offensive chances in the second and third periods.
Dufour, Jamieson, and Rudolph got a lot of playing time in this one and took advantage of it with quality play. The future of this team looks bright, and Dufour scored a wicked goal on the powerplay at the end.
While he wasn’t tested all too often - it’s still important to give props to Miller who made two distinct and memorable saves during the shutout
Miller also recorded an assist in this game - his first of the season.
Everett started playing all of it’s lines an equal amount for most of the third period. For the final five minutes - no Everett player skated near the boards or forechecked with physicality - not wanting to be on the receiving end of a cheap shot from a big Seattle team.
Everett plays later today at 4:05 pm against a Tri-City team who lost their seventh game in a row last night. To read about how the two teams matchup - read the game preview below:
