EVERETT – The evening began with the excitement of fireworks accompanied by the Everett Silvertips captains’ raising the first U.S. Division championship banner in eight years.
The evening ended with more excitement as Everett knocked off Spokane 5-4 in overtime for its first overtime victory of the year.
Playing the new 3-on-3 sudden-death overtime format, Carson Stadnyk found Remi Laurencelle across the crease for the game-winner at 2:08 in the overtime period.
It was Laurencelle’s second goal of the game to go along with an assist as the Tips sent their 6,645 fans home happy in Everett’s first home-opening win since the 2013-14 season.
“Unexpected for sure, but (it felt) really good,” said Laurencelle, one of three overage assistant captains for the Tips.
Turns out the overtime format plays right into Laurencelle’s strengths.
“I’m more of a pond hockey guy. I grew up on outdoor rinks just doing that kind of stuff so it’s a lot easier,” said Laurencelle, a native of Winnipeg, Manitoba. “Playing on the ice outside with friends there isn’t much hitting. Three-on-three is more of a tactic.”
Everett improved to 3-1-0-0 while Spokane slipped to 3-3-0-1 as the Chiefs completed their first extended road trip of the season.
While the Tips were playing their first game in a week, the Chiefs had the opposite problem as Saturday was their fourth game in five nights.
“That’s an incredible effort from their team’s standpoint,” Tips head coach Kevin Constantine said of Spokane. “Both teams are a little disadvantaged, but I take my hat off to how hard Spokane worked.”
A scoreless third period necessitated the overtime session after a wild second period featured a trio of goals for each team.
Jason Fram’s second goal of the game 46 seconds into the second period started the barrage when he was left all alone on the left side of the goal and put a rebound past Everett goaltender Carter Hart for a 2-1 advantage.
Everett’s Matt Fonteyne tied the game when Lucas Skrumeda found him all alone at center ice. Fonteyne took off on the breakaway and beat Spokane goaltender Garret Hughson with 3:13 gone in the second.
Hudson Elynuik reclaimed the lead for the Chiefs at 6:09. Spokane had a chance to go up by two with a Kailer Yamamoto penalty shot, but Hart saved the attempt.
“It was probably game changing at that point,” Everett head coach Kevin Constantine said. “Guys said on the bench, ‘Let’s take advantage of the fact that was a big save for us.’ I think it did give us a little energy.”
The Tips capitalized by converting a pair of power play goals by Graham Millar at 13:47 and Laurencelle at 15:41. Millar’s goal came off a feed from Patrick Bajkov, and Laurencelle deflected in Kevin Davis’ shot from the blue line.
All told the Tips converted three of their five power play opportunities after coming into the game with just one power play goal in their previous three games.
But Spokane answered with a goal from Evan Fiala at 17:20 from the right circle to complete the period tied at 4-4.
“It’s really hard when you take a week off to have any offensive rhythm when you play games,” Constantine said. “That’s part of it. In the second period you get the longer changes and that opens up the ice a little bit, so that’s part of it. You combine all those things together and those are some of the factors.”
The Chiefs took the game’s first lead on Fram’s wrist shot from the blue line at 12:59, but Everett captain Dawson Leedahl followed his own missed shot with a backhand shot past Hughson at 18:21 as the teams went into the first intermission knotted at 1-1.
Hart earned the win in net as he recorded 25 saves. Everett out-shot the Chiefs 39-29.
Everett plays host to Prince Albert at 4:05 today at Xfinity Arena.
Follow Silvertips writer Jesse Geleynse on Twitter @jessegeleynse.
Everett 5, Spokane 4 (OT)
Spokane 1 3 0 0 — 4
Everett 1 3 0 1 — 5
1st Period—1, Spokane, Fram 4 (Henderson, Ke. Yamamoto), 12:59. 2, Everett, Leedahl 1 (Laurencelle, Sutter), 18:26 (PP). Penalties—Fiala Spo (tripping), 4:24; Olynek Spo (roughing), 6:50; Dewar Evt (holding), 9:22; Zwerger Spo (roughing), 17:06; Davis Evt (cross checking), 19:30.
2nd Period—3, Spokane, Fram 5 (Bechtold, Ke. Yamamoto), 0:46 (PP). 4, Everett, Fonteyne 2 (Skrumeda), 3:13. 5, Spokane, Elynuik 4 (Zwerger, Ka. Yamamoto), 6:09 (PP). 6, Everett, Millar 1 (Bajkov, Davis), 13:47 (PP). 7, Everett, Laurencelle 1 (Davis, Sutter), 15:41 (PP). 8, Spokane, Fiala 1 (Bechtold, Cardiff), 17:20. Penalties—Sutter Evt (tripping), 4:48; Fiala Spo (interference), 12:20; McIndoe Spo (holding), 15:11.
3rd Period—No Scoring. Penalties—No Penalties
OT Period—9, Everett, Laurencelle 2 (Stadnyk), 2:08. Penalties—No Penalties
Shots on Goal—Spokane 7-13-9-0-29. Everett 10-12-15-2-39.
Power Play Opportunities-Spokane 2 / 3; Everett 3 / 5.
Goalies-Spokane, Hughson 0-2-1-0 (39 shots-34 saves). Everett, Hart 3-1-0-0 (29 shots-25 saves).
A—6,645
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