EVERETT — The Everett Silvertips received a piece of good news Friday when it was officially announced that Noah Juulsen has been returned to the team from Montreal Canadiens training camp.
Juulsen, Montreal’s first-round pick in the 2015 NHL draft, played in the Canadiens’ preseason game Thursday and tallied two shots in a little more than 13 minutes of ice time.
It was Juulsen’s first game action since recovering from a concussion suffered on the eve of Silvertips training camp in August. More importantly, Juulsen is expected to be in uniform when Everett faces off against the Portland Winterhawks at 7 p.m. tonight at the Moda Center in Portland.
“Having him back will be a boost of confidence for everybody,” Everett forward Connor Dewar said.
The Winterhawks are well-known to the Silvertips as Portland eliminated Everett in the second round of last season’s WHL playoffs. The two teams also played one another three times in the preseason with the Silvertips winning twice.
Of course, that Portland squad was missing a number of players to NHL training camps. While Portland may not be the juggernaut it has been in the recent past, the Winterhawks will continue to pose a challenge to the Silvertips.
“I think they’re going to be good,” Everett head coach Kevin Constantine said. “I think they got a lot of guys this summer that are going to be high level players that are national team level players. I think they’re going to be very good.”
The Winterhawks no longer have last year’s WHL leading scorer Oliver Bjorkstrand, Nicolas Petan or Chase De Leo, but they do return a number of solid offensive performers in Paul Bittner, Keegan Iverson, Alex Schoenborn and Dominic Turgeon. Portland also added highly touted defensemen Jack Dougherty and Caleb Jones.
Goaltender Adin Hill also returns after spending training camp with the Arizona Coyotes, though Hill was injured in warm-ups prior to Portland’s opener at Victoria last weekend leaving Michael Bullion to mind the net.
The Winterhawks will no doubt come in hungry for a victory after dropping both games of their season-opening weekend to the Royals. Victoria won 4-1 and 6-5 at home last weekend.
Nevertheless, Portland appears poised to maintain the high-scoring brand of hockey for which it has become known.
“The games we’ve played (against) them they’re a wide-open offensively natured team with the talent to play that way,” Constantine said. “They’re going to be a very good team again.”
Six different players have scored for Portland thus far. Defenseman Keoni Texeira has three assists, while Carl Ericson, Jones, Skyler McKenzie and Schoenborn each have a goal and an assist.
Everett is coming off a season-opening road split of its own, with a 2-0 victory and a 5-1 loss at Prince George. Patrick Bajkov has a goal and an assist, and Cole MacDonald has two assists to lead Everett, which also received goals from Matt Fonteyne and rookie Connor Dewar in the weekend series.
The Silvertips return to Everett for their home opener Saturday, October 10 when they play host to the Spokane Chiefs at Xfinity Arena beginning at 7:05 p.m.
Follow Silvertips writer Jesse Geleynse on Twitter @jessegeleynse.
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