Silvertips ready for typical grind to close out regular season
Published 1:30 am Thursday, February 23, 2017
EVERETT — Noah Juulsen is used to this.
A fourth-year Everett Silvertips veteran defenseman and this year’s captain, Juulsen has grown accustomed to the second-half grind of the Western Hockey League’s schedule when the injuries occur and there seem to be too few off days.
“The ‘Dog Days,’ I guess some would say,” Juulsen mused Wednesday as the Tips returned to practice following their six-game road trip through the East Division. “Going through it for four years, it’s right around this time. You get back from Christmas and it kind of sets in. As a group we have to keep working, play our game and look forward to Friday night.”
Friday’s game at 7:35 p.m. against the Portland Winterhawks at Xfinity Arena begins yet another stretch of three games in three nights as Kamloops comes to town Saturday and the U.S. Division-leading Tips (36-12-8-2, 82 points) head to Kent to face Seattle on Sunday.
Next week begets a three-in-four set, followed by back-to-back four-in-fives to end the regular season. At this point the looming playoffs might almost seem like a respite when they begin in four weeks.
“These games are no more or less important each game,” head coach Kevin Constantine said, “but I guess when you get to this time of year you don’t have a lot of games left and every game takes on, it seems like, a greater importance.”
Juulsen missed nine games with a lower-body injury he suffered at World Juniors and aggravated upon coming back to Everett. His return has been vital to the Tips’ recent success as he recorded seven points on the six-game road trip.
“It’s been a long year with all the World Junior stuff and that, but I think coming back healthy was the main goal and I think (trainer) Rob (Tagle) did a great job getting me back,” Juulsen said. “It’s kind of exciting right now to get the playoff push here and division here.”
Defensive partner Lucas Skrumeda returned at the same time from his own lower-body injury and the Tips haven’t allowed more than two goals in a game since a 6-5 loss during Portland’s last trip to Everett on Feb. 3.
The absence of Juulsen and Skrumeda coincided with Everett’s worst stretch to date as the Tips were winless in seven straight to briefly cede the U.S. Division lead to Seattle. Everett dropped the opener at Brandon 2-1 before rattling off five straight to conclude the road trip, including an overtime win and a shootout victory.
“We had a rough patch before that for sure and I think we wanted to go into that trip and get some wins,” Juulsen said. “Every guy chipped in and played their role on that trip and we came back with a good record. All that’s behind us now and we’ve got three big games this weekend.”
Portland (32-25-1-3, 68 points) is winless in its last three games, sitting fourth in the U.S. Division and currently holding the final Western Conference wild card spot. The Winterhawks have been something of an enigma all season as they endured a nine-game losing streak early in the year and more recently had a seven-game winning streak that helped create some separation from Spokane in the chase for the second wild card. The Silvertips are 4-3-1-0 against the Winterhawks this year, but have dropped three straight.
“It’s an important game in that they’ve beat us three times in a row — that’s what I take into it,” Constantine said. “We beat them a few games early in the year — I think we were 3-for-4 in our first four — but they’ve beaten us the last three. Add all that together and they’re two teams that are very competitive when we play each other.”
The Tips will have at least one new face as winger Keith Anderson has been called up from Alberni Valley of the BCHL to replace Orrin Centazzo, who will miss the rest of the season with a broken collarbone. Fellow winger Cal Babych is also still on the roster though he hasn’t played since his latest recall from the BCHL’s Coquitlam Express.
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