Tarin Smith’s injury forced him out, Silvertips teammates kept him in

Published 9:30 am Thursday, June 11, 2026

EVERETT — Tarin Smith envisioned himself raising the Ed Chynoweth Cup as the Everett Silvertips captain, but when that finally came to fruition following Everett’s series-clinching 7-2 win against the Prince Albert Raiders in Game 5 of the Western Hockey League (WHL) Championship on May 15, it looked a little different than he imagined.

With Smith’s left arm in a sling, the 20-year-old defenseman needed Silvertips forward Carter Bear’s assistance to raise the coveted trophy above his head. It had been a month-and-a-half since Smith had last played for Everett, when he exited early in Game 4 of the first round against the Portland Winterhawks on April 1.

Despite missing out on the remainder of the Silvertips’ title run, Smith felt all the satisfaction seeing his teammates finish what they had set out to do all the way back in October.

“A lot of us have been here for a long time, and we’ve had some not-so-great playoff runs,” Smith told the WHL’s Cami Kepke immediately after Game 5 against Prince Albert. “So we kind of had a chip on our shoulder heading into this, and I think that carried through our group to all the new guys who came in. … Everyone in our room knew that we would come out on top.”

Still, he wanted nothing more than to be on the ice with them through it all.

Sitting in Angel of the Winds Arena following his exit interviews on June 2, Smith’s arm remained in a sling. After sustaining the injury to his left arm late in the Portland series, Smith searched for any opinion that would keep him on the ice, but the assessments were unanimous: His season was over.

“I battled with five different doctors for three straight weeks about if I could play or not,” Smith told The Herald. “My mind was set on playing. There was no chance I was going to get on the shelf, but I don’t know, I had a lot of high-end doctors telling me that I can’t risk it, and that I need to get surgery and be done for the year, so I think I had to kind of think of my future.”

Replacing Smith would be difficult for Everett. After scoring 16 goals and 71 points in 65 games this season, Smith was named a finalist for WHL Defenseman of the Year. Production aside, the Anaheim Ducks prospect played significant minutes in every phase of the game.

Ultimately, Brek Liske managed to step up in his new role in the top pair with 17 points in 18 WHL playoff games, and Jaxon Pisani held his own playing every night on the third pair as Everett cruised through the WHL Playoff bracket and all the way to the Memorial Cup Championship game.

However, as much as coach Steve Hamilton believed in his team, he understood the uphill battle that Smith’s absence created.

“If you would have told me about Tarin Smith (getting injured) and that we would roll through the playoffs and do what we did, I would have thought that that would have been a tall ask,” Hamilton said after the Silvertips lost in the Memorial Cup Championship on May 31.

It took time for Smith to come to grips with the fact that he could no longer help the team on the ice, but he credits the rest of the team for including him as much as possible off of it. That was a top priority for Bear, one of the team’s alternate captains. After all, the 19-year-old forward had been in Smith’s shoes before.

Just one year prior, Bear was the one sidelined with a season-ending injury after he lacerated his Achilles late in the regular season against Portland. After scoring 40 goals and winning Team MVP in the regular season, Bear could only sit and watch as the top-seeded Silvertips crashed out of the second round against the same Winterhawks team.

“I knew how he felt being out for the playoffs,” Bear told The Herald. “That was me last year. I think you just got to support him as best you can. Obviously worried about his health, for sure. Not just his hockey, his health in general. …

“He was captain for our team, so when he was around, everything was great. When he wasn’t around, us and the (alternate) captains really tried to step it up and tried to take over his role in a sense of the way. I think just Smitty’s obviously a great player. I think we could have made it all the way (in the Memorial Cup) if we had him, for sure.”

For fellow alternate captain Jaxsin Vaughan, his experience watching Shea Busch miss most of the regular season with a wrist injury resonated with him most. Busch made it back in time for the back stretch of the playoffs — he even scored a hat trick in the Championship-clinching Game 5 win — but Smith and forward Clarke Schaefer (shoulder) were not so lucky.

“It’s hard for them to watch,” Vaughan said. “I’ve seen it enough. … It’s hard when you just want to be helping your team. Smitty, he’s our captain. He’s one of the best human beings that I’ve ever played with, and such a great dude. For him to go down, it definitely sucked and was hard for us, but keeping him around and keeping a smile on his face just puts even bigger smiles on our faces, and same thing with (Schaefer).”

The team keeping Smith involved was par for the course, according to the Silvertips captain. Practically every player that spoke to The Herald on June 2 said that this year’s group forged a stronger bond than any team each had been on before.

Whether it was tossing a football, playing spike ball or taking drives to Lake Stevens and downtown Seattle, the Silvertips found plenty of ways to keep busy on off days, and those moments stacked up to create an unshakeable foundation.

So while Smith was unable to finish the journey on the ice, he was never left behind.

“I’ve never been on a hockey team who hangs out together so much away from the rink,” Smith said. “Normally, we’re on the bus for hours and hours and hours, and 90% of the time, you’re like sitting there with your headphones on, not talking. This year, I didn’t even need to take a pair of headphones on the bus because we would just sit there and talk to each other for hours and hours and hours, and I think we were just so close and everyone genuinely cared about each other so much.”

That feeling will be Smith’s lasting impression of his time in Everett, as he is committed to play for the University of Minnesota next season. Smith decided between a handful of schools, but the Golden Gophers expressed the most interest in him, flying out and taking him and his parents to dinner in a surprise visit during his recruitment.

After watching former Silvertips co-captain Eric Jamieson depart for the NCAA last summer and win a national championship with the University of Denver just weeks before Everett won the WHL title, Smith is hoping to do the same in Minnesota in 2026-27.

“I talked to (Jamieson) a little bit. I know that he had a killer year,” Smith said. “He’s a great guy to kind of look up to and use as an example, just his demeanor and how he carries himself. I didn’t talk to him a ton about it, but seeing him do that and go to Denver. He went to the best team in the country, and then he stepped in and took a big role right away.

“So yeah, I feel like I could do the same.”

Smith said he will be out of the sling by the end of June and can resume skating in August. He’s targeting Nov. 1 as his full return to the ice. Many things will have changed since he last played, and although this season did not end how he wanted it to from an individual standpoint, he leaves Everett with no regrets.

“It helps that we won, for sure,” Smith said. “There definitely would have been a lot of ‘what ifs.’ But we played as long as you possibly could in the last possible game that you could have played in, and I’m just so happy and proud that these guys got it done.”