Silvertips off to their best start in 10 years

Published 1:30 am Monday, October 17, 2016

It’s nearly a month into the season and the Everett Silvertips boast the Western Hockey League’s best winning percentage at .800 thanks to their 8-1-1-0 start — their best since 2006-07.

That’s good enough to lead the U.S. Division by a point over Portland, and the Tips are second in the Western Conference behind Prince George (10-2-0-0). However, Everett does have two games in hand on Prince George and one in hand on the Winterhawks. The Tips are 1-0 against Portland, and dealt the Cougars their only two losses of the season last week in Prince George.

Combined with Saturday’s 3-2 home victory over Seattle, the Tips went 4-0 last week while playing four games in five nights.

“It’s hard mentally and physically, but you just have to be mentally engaged at all times and be ready for the game,” said Everett forward Riley Sutter, who contributed two power-play goals in Saturday’s win.

The road remains a place with which the Tips are getting quite familiar as they take on the Spokane Chiefs at 7:05 tonight at Spokane Arena. Then it’s up to Kelowna for a 7:05 game Wednesday before the week concludes with a 7:05 p.m. game Saturday at Victoria. At the end of that stretch, the Tips will have played six of their past seven games on the road.

They don’t return home until Oct. 27 when they play host to Tri-City.

But playing on the road hasn’t hindered Everett. The Tips are 5-0-1 in road games while collecting 11 out of a possible 12 points in the standings. Everett is also 3-1 at home, where it suffered its only regulation loss to visiting Tri-City on Oct. 7.

Most nights Everett uses its tried-and-true recipe of stingy, detailed defense and excellent goaltending. But the Tips have shown the ability to score in bunches when needed. They collected a 7-3 win at Vancouver on opening night, and defeated Prince George 6-3 last Wednesday.

Linemates Patrick Bajkov (four goals, eight assists) and Matt Fonteyne (three goals, five assists) are each averaging better than a point per game, and overager Graham Millar leads the team with six goals and has nine points in 10 games.

Recently acquired overage forward Dominic Zwerger has been a welcome addition. His three goals and five assists put him at a point-per-game average. Last year, no one on the Tips’ roster reached the point-per-game level. Remi Laurencelle was the closest with 28 goals and 30 assists in 69 games.

The Tips are tied for seventh in the WHL in goals scored (36) after finishing 21st last year, and remain second in goals against (21), the same position they occupied a season ago. Their power play has improved from 21st (17 percent) to eighth (23.5 percent) and the penalty kill is up from 16th (77.2) to ninth (81.8).

And, goalie Carter Hart has a 5-1-1-0 record with a .917 save percentage and a 1.98 goals against average since returning from the Philadelphia Flyers’ training camp.

First up tonight are the 2-4-1-1 Chiefs, a young team that took the Tips to overtime last Friday before Bajkov scored the game-winner in the extra session. Spokane is led by the Yamamoto brothers. Overage forward Keanu has two goals and seven assists, and younger brother Kailer, a top prospect eligible for next year’s NHL draft, has six goals and seven assists.

Dawson Weatherill has been Spokane’s top netminder after coming over in a September trade from Red Deer. He is 1-2-0-1 with a 2.68 GAA and .917 percentage. He did not face the Tips last Saturday as Jayden Sittler (1-2-1-0, 5.01 GAA, .829) got the start.

For the latest Silvertips news follow Jesse Geleynse on Twitter @jessegeleynse.