Showdown weekend
Published 3:08 pm Thursday, January 27, 2011
This weekend’s three-in-three is huge for the Silvertips from a playoff standpoint. Everett, which currently occupies last in the Western Conference, has had a steady diet of the conference’s three elite teams — Portland, Spokane and Tri-City — in recent weeks, with eight of the past 10 coming against the big three. However, this weekend features winnable games, with home contests against Seattle and Prince George followed by a road game at Seattle. Everett needs to get a lot of points out of this weekend to get its playoff push back in gear.
It’s starting to look like it’s going to be a four-way race for the final two playoff spots in the conference. Everett, Seattle, Chilliwack and Kamloops are all within three points of one another, and right now all four are sputtering along. So a playoff spot is beckoning for whichever team wants to grab the initiative. And whoever ends up on top in that equation actually gets a prime playoff match-up — the team that finishes seventh gets the B.C. Division champion in the first round and thus avoids the big three.
Therefore, this weekend’s Silvertips games, especially those against Seattle, are crucial.
Or are they? It could be that Everett and Seattle are fighting a losing battle, simply because of geography. How is that? Well, let’s look at each of those bottom four teams’ remaining games against the big three:
Everett (10) — Spokane, Spokane, at Tri-City, Portland, at Tri-City, at Spokane, Portland, Portland, at Tri-City, at Portland.
Seattle (11) — Portland, Spokane, Portland, Spokane, at Spokane, at Tri-City, Portland, at Portland, at Spokane, Portland, Tri-City.
Chilliwack (7) — at Spokane, Tri-City, at Tri-City, at Portland, Portland, at Spokane, at Tri-City.
Kamloops (2) — Tri-City, Tri-City.
What’s not shown here is that Kamloops still has a six-game road trip through the Central Division, and that B.C. Division leaders Vancouver and Kelowna have improved their play of late. Nevertheless, Everett and Seattle face tougher strengths of schedule down the stretch than Chilliwack and Kamloops, simply because they reside in the U.S. Division. That will be a difficult obstacle for the Tips and T-birds to overcome.
