Silvertips return home looking to snap losing skid

Published 8:30 pm Thursday, February 2, 2017

EVERETT — The Everett Silvertips are heading home Friday for the first of two games at Xfinity Arena, and it couldn’t come at a better time.

The Tips, who after Saturday won’t play at home again until Feb. 24, are winless in their last six games and in search of a stop-the-bleeding sort of victory as they seek to maintain an ever-shrinking U.S. Division lead.

“I’m just looking forward to getting out of this funk,” Everett assistant coach Mitch Love said in a postgame interview on 1380 KRKO after Wednesday’s 5-1 loss at Tri-City.

“Our guys, they deserve something good to happen to them and we need to find a win,” he continued. “Maybe this Alumni Weekend coming up with our group, maybe that will give them a little bit of life, a little piece of history for our guys and for our fanbase. But we desperately need some special performances by some individuals to try to get out of this thing.”

First up is a 7:35 p.m. matchup with Portland on Friday. The Tips alumni, of which Love is a member, are headed to town Saturday for a 7:05 p.m. game against Vancouver. Then the Tips hit the road for Brandon, Manitoba, as they begin their six-game swing through the Eastern Division.

Everett (30-10-8-2, 70 points) has plenty of work to do before its players and coaches board the bus Monday morning. The Tips have earned just two “loser points” in their last half-dozen games to see their division lead cut to five points over Tri-City and six above Seattle.

“The only way you get out of something like this is trying to just go to your foundation, and our foundation has always been our structure and our detail,” Love said in the radio interview. “No matter what the score in the game is we can’t lose that.”

And the Tips didn’t on Wednesday, despite entering the third period trailing Tri-City 4-1. Love noted that if not for Aaron Irving’s goal being disallowed late in the game, the third period would have finished even at 1-1 “and we would have been fine with that.”

So what exactly has caused things to go this direction? The lower-body injuries to defensemen Noah Juulsen and Lucas Skrumeda haven’t helped. Skrumeda returned Wednesday, but Juulsen remains out and likely won’t return for several more weeks. Illness has also affected the team, most notably Riley Sutter, who missed four games before returning Wednesday.

Perhaps more indicative of Everett’s recent skid is the play the Tips are getting on special teams and in the net.

“Our special teams has kind of run dry here a little bit of late and to be honest with you, we need a special performance between the pipes and we haven’t had it in a while,” Love said, “and I know those guys know that down there, and we have to try to get back to work on that stuff because it’s been a been a big part of our hockey team and how we’ve been successful so far this year.”

The Silvertips are 0-for-22 on the power play during their six-game winless streak and that doesn’t bode well for a team that is scoring 31 percent of its goals on the man advantage.

Everett remains first overall in the WHL in penalty killing, but the goals it has given up while down a man have proven costly in recent games. The Seattle Thunderbirds scored twice on the power play in the final seven minutes of a 3-2 loss last Saturday, and the Portland Winterhawks had a power-play goal Tuesday to erase Everett’s lone lead before the game was decided in overtime.

Then there is the goaltending. Hart and his backup, Mario Petit, have been solid to exceptional for most of the season, but have struggled during this stretch. Petit lasted just four minutes into the second period Sunday against Kamloops in what was supposed to be an off-night for Hart. Conversely, Hart allowed two goals on seven shots in the opening period Wednesday before he was yanked for Petit after 20 minutes.

The Tips still lead the U.S. Division, and with 22 games to go there is certainly time to reassert control. But first the Tips need to snap their winless streak, something they will take aim at yet again Friday.

For the latest Silvertips news follow Jesse Geleynse on Twitter.