Silvertips capture Game 1 of Western Conference Finals over Penticton

Published 12:46 am Friday, April 24, 2026

EVERETT — Lukas Kaplan could feel a big play was coming. He was due.

With the Everett Silvertips holding a 1-0 lead over the Penticton Vees in Game 1 of the WHL Western Conference Finals at Angel of the Winds Arena on Thursday, the 18-year-old forward had three near-misses across a five-minute span of game time split by the first intermission.

Shortly after unsuccessfully poking a centering pass through traffic around the 17:20 mark, Kaplan could not manage to get a backhand rebound past Vees goalie Andrew Reyelts with 31 seconds left in the first. Just two minutes into the second period, a centering pass from Jaxsin Vaughan ricocheted off his skate towards the net, but Reyelts made the stop once again.

“Me and (my linemates Rylan Gould) and ‘Vaughner’ were just talking on the bench. We were getting the looks, getting the chances,” Kaplan told The Herald. “We could kind of feel it coming.”

That moment finally arrived at 15:16 of the second period, when Silvertips defenseman Landon DuPont retrieved the puck in Everett’s defensive zone and sent a pass up to Kaplan cutting towards the offensive zone. Immediately swarmed by Penticton defenders, Kaplan managed to find Vaughan to his right, where the 20-year-old had enough space to unleash a shot past Reyelts to give Everett a 2-0 lead.

The breakthrough proved to be the winning goal, as the Silvertips rolled to a 4-1 victory, taking a 1-0 series lead.

For the first time all postseason, Everett’s entire top line of Carter Bear, Julius Miettinen and Matias Vanhanen were each held scoreless in the same game. The trio had powered the Silvertips’ offense all postseason, combining for 38 of the team’s 111 points (34.2%) through two rounds. However, on the night Everett needed it most, the secondary scoring picked up the slack. The Silvertips had one 5-on-5 goal produced by each of the other three forward lines.

“Quite frankly, we need secondary scoring,” Everett coach Steve Hamilton said. “Every team does if you want to have success, because those top lines are a ‘push,’ probably, against each other. There’s not a lot of opportunities either way, and so that secondary scoring is perfect.”

DuPont scored the opening goal and registered an assist, while fourth-line forward Hunter Rudolph scored a third-period insurance tally to reestablish the multi-goal lead after the Vees cut it to 2-1. Goaltender Anders Miller stopped 23 of 24 shots.

Bear opened the game with a shot off Reyelts’ left arm around 20 seconds into the game, and the Silvertips followed up in waves with chances out of the gate to build a 5-1 advantage in shots on goal. However, the Vees pushed back to test Miller, forcing him into a kick save around 6:45 before forward Brittan Alstead nearly punched in a rebound at 7:30.

A DuPont cross-checking penalty at 8:46 gave Penticton a few more scoring opportunities. While the Silvertips penalty kill held up, the Vees held the momentum midway through the period with a 7-5 shots advantage.

That was, until DuPont stopped that momentum dead in its tracks with a highlight-reel goal at 12:12.

Picking the puck up off the right post from behind the goal line, the 16-year-old defenseman skated in towards the middle before flipping a shot into the top left corner with his backhand. After ending the second-round series against Kelowna with his Game 5 overtime winner on April 17, DuPont started things off in the Western Conference Finals.

“He’s a stud, that kid,” Vaughan said about DuPont. “We had a hot start. We came out buzzing, and then we slowed down a little bit and kind of wait and see what was going to happen. And he really took charge there and buried one for us, and that was awesome for the boys.”

While DuPont is a defenseman, Zackary Shantz assisted the goal while occupying the offensive zone with Shea Busch and Jesse Heslop, marking that line’s contribution on the score sheet. DuPont had an opportunity to double the lead when Bear teed him up at the point a minute later, but Reyelts squeezed the shot between his pads before it slipped through.

In addition to both of Kaplan’s close calls late in the frame, defenseman Mattias Uyeda fed Vanhanen in the slot for a prime opportunity that Reyelts managed to get in front of with just under a minute left. Everett could not add to its lead, but it wrestled back control of the game.

Everett had to kill off another penalty at 5:28 of the second period when Jaxon Pisani was called for high-sticking. Miller made a kick save on Penticton forward Evers from the right circle early in the power play, and the penalty killers blocked the following shot attempt before clearing it out.

Aside from that kill, the Silvertips forecheck kept much of the action in Pencticton’s end throughout the second period.

“I think we really harped on being hard, making hard plays,” Vaughan said. “Really forcing their (defensemen) to make plays as well. Really pressuring everyone with the puck and just being in good areas. I think we did that well.”

The threat reached a high point on an extended offensive zone possession from the top line, which led to a sequence of shots before the puck rolled out of DuPont’s reach at the point. He circled back to recover the puck in front of Miller as both sides brought out new lines, and that’s when he set up Kaplan and Vaughan to double the lead.

Evers got on the board for the Vees at 3:01 of the third period, emerging from behind the goal line and slotting a shot past Miller in front, but Rudolph pushed it to 3-1 at 8:32, positioning himself in front of the right post and punching in a rebound from Nolan Chastko’s shot from distance.

“On this team, I go and do whatever they say,” said Rudolph, a rookie who scored his second goal of the postseason. “I think when I play that way, that style (checking hard and crashing the net), it gives everyone else energy and I feel like it can create opportunities for me as well, and I love it. It’s something I love to do, for sure.”

Penticton pulled Reyelts to make it 6-on-5 with over three minutes remaining, and while Everett conceded an extra-attacker goal in Games 4 and 5 against Kelowna, Miettinen’s line and the Liske-DuPont pairing held up. Missing the empty net from long range multiple times led to icings, which kept them on the ice for an extremely long shift — DuPont and Liske in particular clocked over two minutes before returning to the bench — before fresh legs took over. Defenseman Kayd Ruedig found the empty net from deep in the Silvertips’ zone at 19:15, with Miller notching the assist from the crease.

“Seemed to be the never-ending shift for those five guys,” Hamilton said. “But they dug in, and I think they won three straight draws clean, so you got to get into your structure and wait for opportunities to pounce and get some pressure, and guys did a good job underneath and keeping the game as much as we could to the outside.”

Everett will look to strengthen its series lead in Game 2 at Angel of the Winds Arena on Saturday at 6:30 p.m.

“In the playoffs, guys step it up,” Kaplan said. “Depth scoring, that wins games, wins series. Our depth guys, we kind of thrive to step it up. And I mean, Rudolph’s line there has a huge goal, huge shifts by them all night. We’re a team that just kind of wants to thrive on our depth scoring, and it’s working out so far.”