Young defensemen stepping up big for Silvertips

Published 7:00 pm Thursday, December 29, 2016

EVERETT — As the second half of the WHL season begins, the Everett Silvertips continue to boast the league’s stingiest scoring defense.

The Tips are doing so even with two of their top pieces, defenseman Noah Juulsen and goaltender Carter Hart, competing for Team Canada at the World Junior Championship in Toronto.

And, as head coach Kevin Constantine has noted time and time again throughout the season, the team is performing at historic levels despite a tremendous amount of youth on the blue line.

With Juulsen absent, just two of the six defensemen suiting up on any given night — Kevin Davis and Lucas Skrumeda — are older than 17. Second-year defenseman Jake Christiansen and local product Wyatte Wylie are both 17, while rookies Montana Onyebuchi and Ian Walker are just 16.

“It’s wonderful, as we said in training camp, for all of those young ‘D’ to get that kind of experience and survive, and for us to be able to get some wins with them,” Constantine said. “You’re going to have spurts of being fine and you’re going to have times where you spend a little bit of time in your own end. But this is really good growth for those guys.”

In Wednesday’s 4-1 victory over the Vancouver Giants, 16-year-old rookie blueliner Gianni Fairbrother made his second appearance of the season. Fairbrother, who joined Walker on the third pairing, appeared in three playoff games last spring and played with the Tips at Kelowna on Oct. 19.

A native of North Vancouver, B.C., Fairbrother was Everett’s fourth-round pick in the 2015 bantam draft. The Silvertips are very high on the youngster’s future with the organization despite sending him back to the Vancouver Northwest Giants of the BCMML where he’s recorded seven assists in 18 games.

“(We want) to make sure he’s coming along because he’s gonna be a big part of our future and that may come sooner than we want if there’s any injuries,” Constantine said. “So he’s got to get a little bit of experience. I thought it was great for him to step in and help us tonight.”

The defensive pairings were switched up a bit Wednesday. Skrumeda remained on the top pair alongside Wylie while Davis went to the second pair with Christiansen. Skrumeda and Davis had been playing together on the top pairing in Juulsen’s absence.

Everett assistant coach Mitch Love works with the defense and is the one who makes that call, Constantine said. However, there was some strategy to the shift. Constantine said the Tips wanted to put Wylie back on his natural right side to better utilize his offensive capabilities.

“When you ask a guy to go over to the other side it’s a lot harder to defend, it’s a lot harder to make offensive plays,” Constantine said. “Wyatte has been great. He’s been willing to step over and play that left side this whole year for the most part, but we really want to kinda take a look at him and see what he’d be like on his normal side too.”

Wylie, the Snohomish County native, has missed only one game this season. He possesses a hard shot that the coaching staff is hoping he can harness into a weapon.

“The growth is when to shoot it hard, where to shoot it, how to get it to the net,” Constantine said. “So sometimes it’s strategy, not velocity in terms of being effective from the point. That’s something all our ‘D’ can work on a little bit.”

The Silvertips (25-4-6-0, 56 points) enter Friday’s 7:35 p.m. matchup with the Prince George Cougars atop the overall WHL standings. The Cougars (26-10-2-0, 54 points) are right at Everett’s heels and leading the B.C. Division.

The Tips boast a 3-0 record against Prince George this year including a 3-0 win at home on Nov. 26. The Cougars are coming off back-to-back losses at Victoria to open the second half.

Prince George’s top point producers include Brad Morrison (16 goals, 20 assists), Jansen Harkins (seven goals, 28 assists), Jesse Gabrielle (19 goals, 13 assists), Colby McAuley (13 goals, 15 assists) and Jared Bethune (11 goals, 14 assists).

The Cougars have the reigning WHL Goaltender of the Week in Ty Edmonds (20-6-1-0, 2.18 goals-against average, .921 save percentage).

For the latest Silvertips news follow Jesse Geleynse on Twitter.