Final weekend
Published 2:31 pm Thursday, March 17, 2011
The final weekend of the regular season has arrived. Everett has three games remaining and plenty to play for.
The Tips have yet to clinch a playoff spot, but they did themselves a world of good by winning 2-1 at Tri-City on Wednesday night. Everett mathematically can still finish as high as
fifth in the Western Conference. However, the chances of that are slim, and the more-important race for the Tips is just getting to the postseason. Going into the final weekend there are four teams in the conference that could miss out on the playoffs. Here’s how those teams stand:
7. Everett: 28-30-7-4, 67 points. Games remaining (3): at Portland, at Chilliwack, at Vancouver.
8. Prince George: 31-35-2-2, 66 points. Games remaining (2): at Kamloops, Kamloops.
9. Seattle: 27-33-4-5, 63 points. Games remaining (3): at Spokane, Portland, Tri-City.
10. Kamloops: 29-36-3-2, 63 points. Games remaining (2): Prince George, at Prince George.
Everett’s in pretty good shape. The Tips are in pole position and have three opportunities to pad their points total, while Prince George and Kamloops have just two. It’s also going to take something special for either Seattle or Kamloops to catch Everett. The T-birds need to win at least twice against that murder’s row schedule, and the Blazers need to sweep Prince George — minus suspended leading scorer Brendan Ranford — just for the chance of pulling into a tie.
There’s also seeding to take into consideration. The team that finishes eighth will have to take on the conference champion in the first round, either Portland or Spokane. The Tips have won just twice in 17 attempts against those teams this season. The team that finishes seventh gets B.C. Division champion Kelowna, which is a good 13-14 points behind those top two teams. So there’s a lot of incentive to stay in front of Prince George (or whoever’s in eighth), too.
The Tips will likely have to pull this off without No. 1 goaltender Kent Simpson (ankle) and captain Landon Ferraro (groin) as both are doubtful for the weekend. However, defenseman Chad Suer (cut leg) skated today and could be available at some point over the weekend.
