Silvertips look to overcome offensive challenges in Game 5

Published 1:30 am Thursday, March 30, 2017

EVERETT — You could call it a must-win game.

You can say it’s now a best-of-three series.

But that’s not the approach the top-seeded Everett Silvertips prefer to take when they resume their first-round Western Conference playoff series with the eighth-seeded Victoria Royals at 7:35 p.m. Friday at Xfinity Arena.

For the Tips it’s simple: when you win four games you move on and when you lose four games you go home.

“Until that moment you go play your next shift — that’s been our strategy all year and that would completely remain unchanged right now,” Everett head coach Kevin Constantine said Thursday by phone as the Tips made their way back from Vancouver Island where they fell 2-1 Wednesday night as the Royals evened the series at two games apiece.

“We gotta go play our next shift and take care of what you need to do on your next shift and work hard and that is forever the formula for success in hockey — to stay very into the present, very into the moment — and put your energy into the next shift. Forget about everything else.”

Regardless of Friday’s outcome, the teams are guaranteed to return to Victoria for a Game 6 Sunday matinee at 2:05 p.m. If necessary, Game 7 would be Tuesday back at Xfinity Arena.

Everett has shown it can win at Victoria with two regular-season wins and a 2-0 victory in Game 3 on Tuesday.

“It’s huge to get that first win on the road,” forward Patrick Bajkov said. “That shows we’re capable of it. After coming back home we’ll have to go up there either way so it’s a good thing to have in our pocket.”

The caveat is that the Game 3 win was due to two power-play goals and a Carter Hart shutout. The only goal the Tips scored Wednesday also came via the power play. Everett hasn’t scored at even strength since Game 2. In sum, just three of Everett’s 10 goals in the series have come at even strength.

The continued absence of centers Devon Skoleski and Riley Sutter (both upper-body injuries) has been among the biggest reasons Everett has struggled to create offense in five-on-five play. Sutter warmed up Wednesday and was a game-time scratch so he appears close to returning. Skoleski seems unlikely to play this series.

“It is challenging right now because of our depletion of forwards and playing defensemen as forwards and playing wingers as centers,” Constantine said. “That has its challenges for us. It’s difficult for us right now in terms of scoring, but we’ve gotta do what we can do. We’ve gotta find ways to manufacture goals and one would be to create as much traffic as possible in front of the other goalie.”

Victoria goalie Griffen Outhouse had his best performance of the series in Game 4 with 30 saves as the Tips outshot the Royals 31-20 for the first time in the series. So far the Royals haven’t been able to solve Bajkov, who has four goals and four assists and is tied for fourth in WHL playoff scoring with teammate Dominic Zwerger (two goals, six assists). Six points for each player have come on the power play.

“I just try to stay focused on the series,” said Bajkov, a native of Nanaimo playing back on Vancouver Island. “Playing Victoria obviously is a little bit special, but I’m just trying to stay focused on the series.”

Everett’s penalty kill also held Victoria scoreless in Games 3 and 4 after allowing the Royals two power-play goals in each of the first two games of the series. It’s on the man advantage where Victoria has most acutely felt the loss of injured forward Jack Walker. He quarterbacks that unit and three of Walker’s four points in the first two games of the series came on the power play.

“No one wants to lose a good player, but they’ve got some real talent there,” Constantine said referring to Victoria’s power play. “Our penalty kill is going to have to stay sharp the whole series and I don’t think we’ll shut them out for the whole series, but we’ve gotta stay sharp. We were pretty motivated by giving up some goals in Games 1 and 2, but we’ve got to stay 100 percent on top of that.”

Forwards Tyler Soy (two goals, one assist), Dante Hannoun (one goal, three assists), Vladimir Bobylev (one goal, one assist), Regan Nagy (one goal, one assist) and Matthew Phillips (one goal, one assist) are all among Victoria’s offensive threats.

Outside of Bajkov and Zwerger, the only players with two or more points for Everett are Kevin Davis (one goal, five assists) and Matt Fonteyne (one goal, one assist). Carter Hart has been solid in net with similar playoff numbers (2.02 goals-against average, .925 save percentage) to his regular-season totals (1.99 GAA, .927 save percentage).

“It’s the playoffs and every game is pretty important,” Bajkov said. “It takes four to win. (Friday) is obviously a big one to go ahead hopefully.”

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