Tips swept away in second-half surge

Published 9:00 pm Wednesday, May 5, 2004

EVERETT — Down two goals in the second period, the Medicine Hat Tigers could easily have mailed it in.

After all, had they lost to the Everett Silvertips Wednesday night in Game 4 of the Western Hockey League championship series and they still would take a 3-1 series lead to Medicine Hat, Alberta.

And few teams are as invincible at home as the Tigers were this season, with a 24-3-2 record at the cozy confines cleverly dubbed "The Arena."

That, however, isn’t the way champions think.

"We just said that we’ve got to put it away here," said Tigers right winger Darren Reid after his team captured the WHL title with a 4-2 victory at the Everett Events Center to attain the sweep.

Against the amazing Silvertips, who made their astonishing run on great goaltending, sticky defense and hard work, the Tigers were merely getting warmed up. A two-goal deficit 29:12 into a hockey game means next to nothing to this wrecking crew, the WHL’s best offensive team in 2003-04.

Medicine Hat simply stuffed the Silvertips after Curtis Billsten’s goal 9:12 into the second period that gave Everett a 2-0 lead. From then on, the Tigers bombarded Silvertips goalie Jeff Harvey with 33 shots on goal and allowed just five. For the game, Medicine Hat held a ridiculous 45-17 advantage in shots on goal.

In building the two-goal lead, the Silvertips played the Tigers exactly the way they wanted. Much of the time, unlike the vast majority of the series, Everett carried the offensive play to the Tigers, snapped an 0-for-23 power play drought and apparently had Medicine Hat on the brink.

The Tigers had other ideas.

"We have a lot of guys with a lot of offensive skill," Tigers left winger Steve Regier said. "There was a game earlier in the year where we were down by four going into the third period and we pulled that game out. We feel nothing is impossible. We can always come back, no matter what."

Medicine Hat made few adjustments. The Tigers merely got back to what they do best: They used their speed on both ends of the ice. On offense, their superior skating and puck-handling skills produced more great scoring chances than even the great Harvey could deal with.

On defense, Medicine Hat smothered the Silvertips every time they tried to mount a charge. Defensemen Steve Marr, Cody Blanshan and Kris Russell chased down Everett’s puck-handlers, while Reid, Regier and Stefan Meyer took possession of the puck.

The difference between the first 29 minutes and the last 31 was staggering.

"It was a big deficit in this building with these fans," said a teary-eyed Tigers coach Willie Desjardins. "Our guys kept working hard, and we’ve found when we work hard, good things will happen. We got stronger as the game went on."

Part of the difference was desperation. The last thing Medicine Hat wanted was to give Everett a chance to duplicate its comeback against Kelowna in the Western Conference finals, when the Silvertips won three straight overtime games to pull out the series in seven games.

"Winning’s not easy," Desjardins said. "Everett was a super team. They fought for so much this year. They’ve got to be so proud of themselves. But our guys have such great hearts. You can’t say enough about them."