Final thoughts as Everett Silvertips defeat Portland Winterhawks
Published 11:35 pm Wednesday, February 3, 2016
The Game
The youth movement came through for the Everett Silvertips Wednesday night as 16-year-olds Connor Dewar and Brian King each scored in a 3-2 victory over the Portland Winterhawks.
“Those guys work hard and they’re really detailed,” Everett head coach Kevin Constantine said, “so it’s real easy to trust having them on the ice because they work, they compete and they know our system as good as any of our players in that locker room.”
Dewar continues to play in a way that belies his age. With Remi Laurencelle suspended through Friday’s game, Matt Fonteyne jumped up to center the first line while Dewar played on the second line with Patrick Bajkov and Graham Millar. Dewar has also been a consistent contributor on special teams – as evidenced by the power play goal he scored Wednesday.
It was a gritty victory – Constantine called it a “character win” – in which the only major miscue was goaltender Carter Hart’s misplay to Rihards Bukarts for the go-ahead goal five minutes in.
Hart often leaves the crease to direct the puck to teammates. Unfortunately for the Tips he directed that particular pass to an opponent.
“We believe in a goalie helping us in our breakout so we don’t want to discourage him from doing that, but he knows it wasn’t a very good play,” Constantine said of his star goaltender. “He’ll have to just shrug that one off and we gotta do our share to communicate with him when he’s back there handling it.”
Constantine didn’t elaborate on Carson Stadnyk’s upper body injury. Stadnyk had trouble getting up following a second-period check along the boards and left the game. He was dressed in a suit and walking fine afterward, so we’ll see how that plays out.
The Turning Point
Brian King scored the go-ahead goal with less than four minutes to play as the Tips topped nemesis Portland.
Three Stars
1. Everett F Connor Dewar: The youngster scored Everett’s second goal on the power play and assisted fellow rookie Brian King for the game-winner en route to his third multi-point game this season.
2. Everett F Dawson Leedahl: The captain scored the tying goal with a nice move behind the net and out to the circle, where his shot leaked through Portland goaltender Adin Hill.
3. Portland F Rihards Bukarts: The Latvian, who had a hat trick in Portland’s 7-5 win in its previous trip to Everett, scored the game’s first goal.
