Kent Simpson has a sprained ankle (corrected)

Published 2:50 pm Monday, March 7, 2011

Everett’s No. 1 goaltender Kent Simpson suffered a sprained ankle during Friday night’s game at Tri-City and is considered day to day. Simpson suffered the injury when he turned an ankle while moving laterally against the post. Simpson did not practice today and will not play Tuesday at Spokane. After that he will be evaluated on a game-by-game basis. Call-up goaltender Andy Desautels will remain with the Tips until Simpson is able to return.

This is good news for the Tips, as the injury wasn’t anything worse. However, sprains are notoriously fickle, so it remains to be seen how many of Everett’s remaining seven games Simpson will be available for. Everett is fighting for its playoff life, so having its No. 1 netminder available could be the difference between preparing for the first round and packing to head home.

In other news, some of you may have noticed that the Tips were fined by the league for failing to make a player available for the three stars presentation Friday at Tri-City.

This is confusing to me. I’ve seen several instances of visiting players not coming out for the stars announcement at games at Comcast Arena, and I can’t remember any teams getting fined for it. Is this a new league regulation? And Gregg Drinnan notes on his blog (link on left) that in Kamloops on Friday the three stars presentation was skipped all together. Huh.