Silvertips honor their three overage players ahead of postseason

EVERETT — The Everett Silvertips have the WHL playoffs ahead of them, which they enter as the top seed with home-ice advantage, but Friday’s regular season home finale against the Wenatchee Wild was more than just a postseason tune-up for Austin Roest, Tyler MacKenzie and Dominik Rymon.

For the three overage forwards, it was goodbye and thank you.

The Silvertips honored Roest, MacKenzie and Rymon at the conclusion of Everett’s 5-0 win, which marked their final regular season home game with the Silvertips. It will not be the last time they play in Angel of the Winds Arena — Games 1 and 2 of the postseason against the Seattle Thunderbirds will be March 28 and 29 — but it’s the beginning of the end, one way or the other.

Whenever Everett’s season concludes, either with the euphoria of a championship or heartbreak of a squandered season, so too will their WHL careers. So Friday’s home finale was an ideal time to send them off.

“It’s definitely special,” MacKenzie said. “Coming here, it’s been an unbelievable experience for me, and you know, to share it with the two other 20-year-olds that I did, and the rest of the guys in the room, like there’s no better feeling, and just the fans, how much they care and how much they appreciate us, it means a lot. So definitely emotional, but it was a fun night.”

Our boys, our overagers, our stars #ForEverett pic.twitter.com/8JoSTjbpP2

— xyz – Everett Silvertips (@WHLsilvertips) March 22, 2025

After the win, in which the three forwards were named the 3 Stars of the Game despite not putting up the top stats of the night, Roest, MacKenzie and Rymon skated a lap around the ice with the rest of the team trailing behind. They raised their sticks to salute the fans, who cheered and rang cowbells. Blue Suede’s ‘Hooked on a Feeling’ played over the arena speakers. The video board showed a tribute video of each player’s origins in the WHL to now, showcasing each player’s different paths that all converged in the same place.

Roest is a Silvertips lifer. The 21-year-old spent parts of five seasons with the club that selected him in the third round (64th overall) of the 2019 WHL Prospects Draft. A Nashville Predators’ sixth-rounder in 2023, Roest was not supposed to be in Everett this season.

After signing his NHL entry-level contract with Nashville on March 1, 2024, Roest tore a labrum in his shoulder during training camp in September, he revealed to the Herald on Friday. He had surgery two days after the injury, but his recovery lasted to the longer end of the typical four-to-six month window due to the severity of the damage.

He rehabbed with Nashville’s AHL affiliate, the Milwaukee Admirals, until the Predators decided to re-assign him back to Everett ahead of the WHL Trade Deadline on Jan. 9. He returned to the Silvertips’ lineup on March 7, and he averaged a point-per-game across his six appearances entering Saturday.

Now, he has a chance to help the Silvertips to a WHL Championship. A chance he did not think he would have a year ago.

“I think it’s just kind of trusting the process,” Roest said. “Whatever happens, happens. You just got to control what you control. For me, it’s just going to be playing the best I can play, being a leader on this team and hopefully bringing home a championship to Everett. That’s been the goal ever since I stepped into this league, and honestly really grateful to have one more chance at it.”

Despite his familiarity with the organization and after serving as a team captain last season, Roest had a lot of new faces to meet upon rejoining the group, but he believes this is the deepest Silvertips team he’s been a part of.

One of those new faces skated next to him in that postgame lap on Friday. Everett acquired MacKenzie on May 9, 2024 after the 2019 WHL sixth-rounder spent the first 197 games of his career with the Medicine Hat Tigers.

The complete opposite of Roest, this season marked MacKenzie’s first and only in Everett, but he made the most of it. He leads the team with 45 assists entering the final game of the season on Saturday, and his 33 goals and 78 points each rank second behind Carter Bear (40 goals, 82 points).

“Coming here, you never know how it’s going to be,” MacKenzie said. “At the end of the day, it’s kind of a little bit of what you make of it. I came here, and it’s been so special. Landed on my feet. … So much credit goes to (coach Steve Hamilton) and everyone around me in that room. They made it super easy.”

Rymon, meanwhile, falls somewhere in between. He spent parts of three seasons with the Silvertips, coming by way of Karlovy Vary, Czechia. He is just one of two non-Canadians on the Silvertips’ roster — along with Julius Miettinen (Finland) — and he ranks top five on the team in all three scoring categories this season, including third in points (66) and goals (30).

Entering Saturday’s season finale, the three combined for 613 WHL games and 546 points (227 goals, 319 assists). Hamilton could not overstate their impact on the team.

“They’re all fabric guys,” Hamilton said. “There’s no question. … All those guys have had an impact on the program, and they have an impact on their teammates. I’ve always said one of the jobs of a 20-year-old is you’re planting seeds you may never see grow, and some of our young guys are going to look back and say how fortunate they were to play with those three. Because to get three committed, team-first guys like that is so incredibly powerful.”

Roest, MacKenzie and Rymon have each planted seeds in the team this season, but this time they actually have a chance to see them grow.