When the WHL announced its all-star teams and awards finalists the week before the playoffs began, I went on an uncharacteristic rant.
That afternoon I was essentially out the door and headed to Everett’s practice when I checked my e-mail one last time and found the WHL’s press release in my inbox. I took a quick glance at the release and decided I was going to be late for practice. Everett was completely shut out of the all-star teams and award nominations, despite winning the U.S. Division, and I thought that required a response.
Usually I’m pretty measured with what I write. I like to take time to absorb any information I receive, making sure I have an objective handle on it before I begin typing. Had the Tips just been shut out in the all-star teams and player awards categories I probably wouldn’t have been moved to write anything at all.
It was the Western Conference nominee for Coach of the Year that prompted me to take my jacket off and settle back in to write a blog post.
Everett’s Kevin Constantine may have lost out to Kelowna’s Dan Lambert, but I really don’t understand how. Personally, I thought Constantine and his staff did an absolutely phenomenal job with the Tips this season.
Consider the following:
– Nobody predicted Everett would win anything before the season began. The consensus was that Portland was the team to beat in the division yet again, and that if any team had a chance to challenge the Winterhawks it was Seattle. Everett was largely expected to duke it out with Tri-City for third place. Instead, the Tips won the division.
– Before the season began all the talk around Everett was whether the Tips would be able to score goals. Everett wasn’t a particularly high-scoring team in 2013-14, and the Tips lost four of their top five scorers to graduation. So what did Everett do this season? Just break the franchise record for goals in a season by finding the net 237 times. It wasn’t just because of the acquisition of Nikita Scherbak, either:
#TipsTidbit – Every veteran player on the ‘Tips roster who played more than 40 games this season reached a new career high in points.
— Everett Silvertips (@WHLsilvertips) April 22, 2015
What we saw was an across-the-board improvement in Everett’s players this season. It wasn’t just in scoring, it was in ways that don’t show up on the scoresheet, too. One has to think coaching had something to do with that.
– Everett, based on the opinions of NHL evaluators, wasn’t very talented this season. The Tips had just two NHL-drafted players on their roster this season, Scherbak and defenseman Ben Betker. Let’s compare that to the two teams that missed the playoffs in the Western Conference. Everett’s two drafted players equaled the number on Vancouver’s roster (Jackson Houck and Mason Geertsen), and it was one fewer than Kamloops had (Cole Ully, Ryan Rehill, Marc McNulty). Everett’s talent level, at least in NHL terms, was on par with the worst teams in the conference.
Now lets compare it to Portland, the team that eliminated Everett from the playoffs. The Winterhawks iced eight NHL draft picks this season: Nicolas Petan, Oliver Bjorkstrand, Blake Heinrich, Anton Cederholm, Dominic Turgeon, Alex Schoenborn, Keegan Iverson and Chase De Leo. Portland even had more players rated high for this year’s NHL draft (Paul Bittner, Adin Hill), than Everett (Noah Juulsen). That the Tips held that lot off to win the division title is remarkable.
I don’t think one can say that the coaching job done by Everett’s staff this season was the best in franchise history — it’s hard to top what Constantine and the Tips achieved in 2003-04 as an expansion team. But it’s close, and I think it was the best coaching the Tips have had since.
Next: 2015-16 preview: It’s a mystery
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