WHL notebook: ‘Loser points’ help Silvertips top standings

Published 1:30 am Tuesday, February 21, 2017

The Everett Silvertips concluded their two-week jaunt to Manitoba and Saskatchewan with a 5-1 record as they won five straight to end the trip after opening with a 2-1 loss at Brandon.

As a result, the Silvertips (36-12-8-2, 82 points) are back atop the Western Hockey League’s Western Conference standings by a single point over their U.S. Division rivals, the Seattle Thunderbirds (38-17-3-2, 81 points).

Yes, that’s correct, the Tips lead the conference despite having fewer wins than both Seattle and third-place Prince George, and the same number of wins as fourth-place Kamloops. How is that possible, particularly when you consider Everett has played fewer games (58) than Seattle (60), Prince George and Kamloops (both 61)?

The answer is the “loser points” system that awards two points per victory regardless of how it’s achieved (regulation, overtime or shootout) and one point to the team that loses in overtime or a shootout. With its disciplined, structured style, Everett has mastered the art of clamping down defensively late in games and frequently forces overtime. With eight overtime losses and two shootout defeats, the Tips have garnered 10 “loser points,” the most in the Western Conference. The Tips are 3-8 in games decided in overtime and a 2-2 in shootouts.

“We know that we haven’t been real strong in 3-on-3 overtimes this year,” Everett assistant coach Mitch Love said in a postgame interview on 1380 KRKO following Everett’s 2-1 shootout win at Saskatoon on Feb. 15. “We’ve made different adjustments, learning from what you see in the National Hockey League, which I think is a big thing, how they play things in overtime.”

Everett’s struggles in overtime are a shift from last season when the Tips finished 8-5 in overtime games and were 0-3 in shootouts. It’s a small sample size given that this is just the second season the current 3-on-3 overtime rules have been in use. It also becomes a completely superfluous statistic once the regular season ends because playoff games continue at 5-on-5 until someone wins.

“I think we’ve gotten better even though we haven’t gotten a win or the results we’ve wanted in overtime, but in the last month or so, the games we have gone into overtime we’ve gotten to a shootout instead of a loss,” Love said. “We’re tweaking things in overtime as we go here, and hopefully we can find a win in overtime at some point before the end of the year.”

Three nights after Love spoke on the radio, that’s exactly what happened. Eetu Tuulola scored the game-winner in overtime as the Tips defeated Swift Current 3-2 to conclude the trip. It was Everett’s third overtime win of the season and first since Oct. 29.

Rivals battle for first

At the halfway point of the season the Everett Silvertips appeared to be running away with the U.S. Division. But a skid by Everett prior to its trip east that coincided with a strong push from Seattle turned the division back into a two-team race between the Tips the defending Western Conference champion Thunderbirds.

Seattle and Everett leapfrogged one another during the past two weeks with the Tips currently holding that tenuous one-point advantage. The teams face one another three more times this season — once at Xfinity Arena and twice at ShoWare Center — and those three games will do much to determine which team ultimately prevails for the division title.

The T-birds are 7-2-0-1 in their past 10 games while the Tips are 6-3-1-0. Two of Everett’s three victories over Seattle this season have come via Carter Hart shutouts.

U.S. Division dominates

The Silvertips weren’t the only U.S. Division team to have success on its trip to the prairie provinces. In fact, all five squads finished with winning records.

Everett posted a 5-1 record, the Tri-City Americans went 6-0, and both Seattle and Portland were 4-2. Even Spokane was 3-2-1 on its trip as the U.S. Division teams collectively went 22-7-1-0 against the East Division. Everett sent the WHL-leading Regina Pats into a tailspin following the Tips 4-2 win at Regina on Valentine’s Day.

OK, not really. But the Pats did drop two of their next three games, then needed overtime to get past lowly Prince Albert 3-2 Monday. Former Tip Dawson Leedahl was the hero for Regina in Monday’s matinee as he scored twice, including the overtime winner.

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