The day after

Published 9:00 pm Monday, April 16, 2007

Well, I’m back from Prince George, and having had a night to think about it, I believe the Cougars were fully deserving of their second-round victory over the Silvertips. What I mean by that is that I believe Prince George won the series, as opposed to Everett losing it. There are many who wouldn’t agree with that assessment, particularly given the substantial difference in regular season records between the two teams. But that’s what I believe nonetheless.

I think there was a misconception that this was some sort of uber-talented Everett team that was head and shoulders above the rest when it came to ability. That’s just not true, and there’s many ways to illustrate this.

– Everett had four NHL draft picks on its postseason roster. Center Peter Mueller and goaltender Leland Irving were first-round picks, right wing Moises Gutierrez and defenseman Dan Crowley were sixth-round picks. The Tips also had two players (center Zach Hamill and defenseman Taylor Ellington) who will probably be taken in the early rounds of this year’s draft, and another player (left wing Kyle Beach) who looks like a lottery pick in 2008. Let’s compare that to Prince George. The Cougars have nine players who were selected in the NHL draft, including three first-round picks in right wing Devin Setoguchi and defensemen Ty Wishart and Vladimir Mihalik. Left wing Dana Tyrell could make that four first rounders this year. Any way you crunch those numbers and it’s advantage Cougars. Even with Prince George losing center Eric Hunter early in the series, and even if the Tips had the services of injured left wing Ondrej Fiala, it wouldn’t have matched up, at least as far as tne NHL scouts are concerned.

– Everett’s much-beloved “Joes” line, consisting of center Damir Alic, right wing Jesse Smyke and left wing Brennan Sonne, did an admirable job all season long as the Tips’ checking line. But let’s not forget that all three were listed players, guys anyone in the league could have had if they wanted. Both Smyke (Saskatoon) and Alic (Seattle) had their chances to impress other teams before coming to Everett, but weren’t able to stick. They developed into solid contributors with Everett, but they didn’t exactly compose the most talented third line in the league.

– And despite their impressive record, the Tips never really blew anyone out during the regular season. There were two games — an 8-0 victory over Chilliwack and a 9-0 victory over Portland — where Everett outclassed the competition. But otherwise the season was built on a lot of one-goal victories as the Tips went 20-2-1-2 in one-goal games. That says Everett wasn’t exactly imposing its superior talent on opponents.

Everett had a lot of talent on its team this season. But it really wasn’t more than other good teams have. What happened was the Tips maxed out their talent night-in and night-out during the regular season better than anyone else did. But then they didn’t have that extra gear for the playoffs, the way a team like Prince George, which underachiaved during the regular season, did.

The other thing that became clear watching the series’ six games was that Everett wasn’t the type of team that could exploit Prince George’s biggest weakness, a lack of depth on the blue line. The Cougars only play four defensemen, and Wishart and Mihalik log a ton of ice time. The best way to wear down a thin defense is to lay big hits on them when they retrieve the puck along the boards in their own end. But Everett’s forwards are smallish and not big hitters and therefore were unable to do much damage. (On a side note, it’ll be a different story in the conference finals. Vancouver is all about punishing the opposing team’s defense with a heavy-hitting forecheck. Getting hit by Milan Lucic, J.D. Watt and Kenndal McArdle is a lot different from fending off Sonne and Zack Dailey).

So congratulations Cougars, you earned it. Good luck in the next round against the Giants.