Silvertips overcoming travel obstacles
Published 1:30 am Monday, November 14, 2016
EVERETT — The travel schedule in the Western Hockey League produces a lot of challenges.
Even so, the Everett Silvertips have thrived in the midst of those challenges. Despite seeing their six-game winning streak snapped on Saturday at Spokane, the Tips remain atop the U.S. Division and have points in eight straight games.
The Silvertips (14-2-3-0, 31 points) have attempted to mitigate some of the difficulties brought on with the travel schedule. Following their game last Friday at Portland, the team traveled to Tri-Cities where it spent the night. Then it took a quick, two-hour jaunt to Spokane for Saturday’s game.
“The stat when we don’t go to bed before 2 at night is 2-0-2, so we’ve gotten points in all those games, but it’s not as a good a record,” Everett head coach Kevin Constantine said. “So does going to bed at 3 or 4 in the morning affect you? The statistics would say yes, but I don’t know. We don’t really like excuses, so we don’t like to run to that very often. We had a good first period (in Spokane) and we weren’t very good after that, so we really didn’t have that good of a game.”
Despite having a poor game by Constantine’s standards, the Tips led 1-0 and 2-1 before Kailer Yamamoto scored the tying and winning goals to snap Everett’s streak. The Tips also allowed 15 more shots than they took.
“Fundamentally we just did some things wrong in terms of the technique of blocking shots,” Constantine said. “But we spent more time in our end than normal. If you do that you’re going to be at a shot differential, which was 33-18, which is not a great formula. You gotta find a way to get out of your end and find a way to get in their end.”
Everett has another chance for a better performance tonight when the Calgary Hitmen (7-6-2-0, 16 points) invade Xfinity Arena at 7:05 for the only meeting of the season between the two teams.
The Hitmen are coming off a 9-2 loss at Portland on Saturday. Matteo Gennaro (four goals, nine assists) and Jordy Stallard (three goals, seven assists) are Calgary’s top point producers while Carsen Twarynaki leads the team in goals with six.
Following Tuesday’s game is yet another late-night bus trip to Kamloops, where the Tips will take on the Blazers (11-10-1-0, 22 points) Wednesday evening.
While a five-hour bus ride through the night isn’t ideal, at least one Silvertips player is looking forward to the trip. Defenseman Kevin Davis will get the chance to skate on home ice Wednesday when Everett makes one of its two trips to Davis’s hometown.
“It’s always special to play up there,” Davis said. “Hopefully there will be a good crowd.
“(I have) a lot of good memories there, a lot of good times at the rink.”
Davis played for the Kamloops Blazers bantam team and later played for the Kamloops-based Thompson Blazers in the B.C. Major Midget Hockey League before joining the Silvertips as a 16-year-old in 2o13-14.
One coach who mentored the young Davis was current Blazers goaltending coach Dan De Palma.
“One thing (he taught me) that stuck in my mind that’s been in there forever is that every day is a tryout,” Davis said. “Give it your all every day.
“You’re only as good as your last game. You have to bring it every night.”
Even on nights that follow a long bus ride.
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