Tips ‘stay course’ on deadline day

Published 9:00 pm Monday, January 10, 2005

EVERETT – The Western Hockey League’s trade deadline came and passed Monday with the Everett Silvertips choosing to stick with the players they have.

On a busy day that saw several teams make significant deals in an attempt to upgrade for the stretch run, Everett decided to maintain faith in its current personnel.

“Nothing came around that really worked for us, so we decided to stay the course,” Everett general manager Doug Soetaert said. “The team we have now is in second place and it’s because of the guys we have. We have some injury situations, but no one is panicking. Once we’re healthy I feel we’re as good as any team in the league, and that’s all you can ask for.”

The Silvertips made one minor move, reassigning center Derek Lewis to Penticton of the British Columbia Hockey League in order to get down to the league-mandated roster size of 25. However, as a roving affiliate, Lewis is still eligible to play for Everett and he will remain with the Silvertips for the time being because of injuries to forwards Tyler Dietrich and Mark Kress.

The 18-year-old Lewis, who made the roster as a listed player during training camp, has one goal and three assists in 37 games with Everett.

“We had to get down to 25 and we have 26 here, so he was just the odd man out,” Soetaert said of Lewis. “We brought (Matt) Sawa in and he’s kind of taken the spot. Lewis has been steady, but we have to make decisions, so we had to go with that.”

Lewis’ reassignment leaves Everett with 13 forwards, 10 defensemen and two goaltenders officially on the roster.

A total of 10 trades were made Monday involving 27 players.

In the biggest move of the day, Central Division-leading Lethbridge acquiring 20-year-old center Tyler Redenbach – the league’s defending scoring champion – from Swift Current in exchange for 17-year-old defenseman R.J. LaRochelle, 18-year-old left wing David Murray and 20-year-old left wing Justin Cruse.

The busiest team Monday was Prince George. The Cougars made a pair of blockbuster deals, acquiring 18-year-old defenseman Andy Rogers, a first-round pick in the 2004 NHL Draft by Tampa Bay, from Calgary along with 20-year-old left wing Lee Zalasky and 18-year-old goaltender Scott Bowles in exchange for 18-year-old goaltender Justin Pogge, 18-year-old defenseman Dylan Yeo, 20-year-old left wing Tyrel Lucas and a sixth-round pick in the 2005 Bantam Draft. Prince George also picked up bruising 20-year-old defenseman Matej Trojovsky from Swift Current along with 18-year-old left wing Blair Stengler and 18-year-old center Tyler Feakes – a former Silvertip – for 18-year-old right wing Josh Aspenlind, a fifth-round pick in the 2005 Bantam Draft and a conditional seventh-round pick in the 2006 Bantam Draft.

Another active team was Kamloops, which traded 20-year-old center Jarret Lukin to Medicine Hat in exchange for 20-year-old center Paul Gentile and 17-year-old right wing Bryan Kauk. Kamloops also sent 19-year-old left wing Cam Cunning to Vancouver for 18-year-old right wing Matt Kassian.

Unique strategy: When the Silvertips fell behind 3-0 to Kamloops on Saturday, Everett coach Kevin Constantine resorted to an unusual technique in an attempt to come back. In the third period, every time Everett had a faceoff in the Blazers’ zone, he pulled goaltender Leland Irving for an extra attacker.

“You’re down three and nobody comes back from goals in hockey,” Constantine explained. “I just get bored sometimes. The odds are so stacked against you coming back from one goal, let alone three. Why do what’s conventional if conventional lets you win one percent of the time?”

Irving ended up leaving the ice five times and the strategy had some effect as Everett was able to pour the pressure on the Kamloops net. However, the Tips were unable to get anything past Kamloops netminder Devan Dubnyk.

“I have never, ever, seen a goalie pulled with that much time and in that situation,” Dubnyk said. “I thought it wasn’t the smartest idea at the start, but they did an incredible job of keeping the puck in our zone and getting pressure. After the first few times it started to seem like a real smart move.”

The strategy continued until Kamloops’ Kalvin Sagert scored the length of the ice into an empty net 8 minutes, 4 seconds into the period.

Scouting report: The last time the Kootenay Ice came to Everett, they were missing their top two players. This time Kootenay will be at full strength and the Ice (25-13-4-0) should present a stiff test to the Silvertips (20-13-6-2).

When Everett beat Kootenay 1-0 on Dec. 1, the Ice were without their leading scorer, 19-year-old left wing Nigel Dawes (21 goals, 11 assists), and their No. 1 goaltender, 19-year-old Jeff Glass (15-7-2, 1.63 goals against average, .938 save percentage), both of whom were training with Canada’s junior national team. Both are now back, fresh off winning gold medals at the World Junior Hockey Championships, where Dawes had two goals and four assists in six games and Glass was 5-0.

Kootenay didn’t suffer much drop off in their absence because of steady play from 20-year-old forwards Adam Taylor (10 goals, 21 assists) and Martin Sagat (nine goals, 18 assists), 19-year-old forwards Dale Mahovsky (11 goals, 19 assists), Adam Cracknell (10 goals, 18 assists) and Casey Lee (six goals, 20 assists) and 18-year-old goaltender Taylor Dakers (10-6-2, 2.07 goals against average, .914 save percentage).