KENNEWICK – Carey Price stopped the world early this month in the World Junior championships. Saturday night, he stoned the Everett Silvertips.
Price, the starting goaltender for gold medal-winning Team Canada, stopped every shot the Silvertips threw at him in the final 37 minutes, plus all three Everett shootout attempts in a 3-2 victory by the Tri-City Americans at the Toyota Center.
Price stopped Peter Mueller, Moises Gutierrez and Andrej Fiala in the shootout, and the Americans won when Colton Yellow Horn’s goal in the first round of the shootout held up.
The game featured two of the top goaltenders in junior hockey, Price and Leland Irving of the Silvertips, and they played to a deadlock until the shootout.
Irving, Price’s backup on Team Canada, kept the Silvertips in the game early when he turned away all 12 Tri-City shots in the first period, including several at point-blank range to keep the game scoreless.
The Americans took a 1-0 lead less than a minute into the second period when Yellow Horn poked a rebound past Irving for his 31st goal of the season.
The Silvertips quickly responded, and Gutierrez scored two power-play goals for a 2-1 Everett lead.
Gutierrez deflected a shot from the point by Fiala to tie the score 1-1 just 1:50 into the second period, and he banged the puck past Price at 12:36 on a crisp tic-tac-toe play when Dan Gendur fed a pass from the right point to Fiala, who one-timed the puck across the crease that helped Gutierrez score his 25th goal this season.
The Silvertips’ lead lasted less than four minutes, when Americans center Drew Hoff batted a rebound past Irving to tie the score 2-2 with four minutes remaining in the second period.
Both teams had scoring chances in the third period and overtime, but both Irving and Price made big saves to keep the score tied.
Irving stopped Yellow Horn at point-blank range early in the third period, then made two stops in the final five minutes on shots by Taylor Procyshen, including a glove save on a shot in front of the net with two minutes remaining.
Late in the third period, Price stopped Fiala, who scooped up a loose puck and skated alone – although at a sharp angle – on the Tri-City goaltender.
The overtime, and shootout, were near repeats of a memorable World Junior confrontation between Mueller and Price.
With the Silvertips shorthanded midway through the overtime, Mueller broke into the Tri-City zone on a breakaway but was stopped both by Price and the Americans’ Alex Aldred, who slashed Mueller as he approached the net. Aldred drew a penalty on the play, but the Silvertips couldn’t convert on the power play as time expired and the game went to the shootout.
Mueller took Everett’s first shot in the shootout, continuing a battle with Price that went back to the World Junior tournament in Sweden. Mueller, playing for Team USA, scored on two of three shots against Price in the semifinal shootout against Canada. The one shot Price stopped, when Mueller tried to shoot between his legs, won the game for Canada.
Saturday, Mueller tried a similar move and Price stopped him again.
Yellow Horn then deked Irving before flipping a shot high on the stick side.
Price stopped Gutierrez and Irving made a stick save on Felde before Fiala, needing to score to keep the shootout alive, again fell victim to Price. Fiala deked him on the right side of the crease, then crossed and seemed to have an opening before Price knocked the puck away to win the game.
It left the Silvertips 6-2 this season in shootouts. Tri-City is 4-1.
Slap shots: The Silvertips’ Brandon Campos injured his right leg and had to be helped off the ice after he slammed awkwardly into the boards late in the third period. … Left wing Brennan Sonne was suspended for Saturday’s game after he received a game misconduct penalty as the third man into a fight at the end of Friday night’s game against Vancouver. … Fifteen-year-old Brett Gagnon was the Silvertips’ backup goaltender for a second straight game while David Reekie sat out because of a sprained ankle. … The Silvertips also were missing three other regulars, center Zach Hamill and defenseman Dane Crowley because of the flu and defenseman Graham Pouter because of a wrist injury. … Saturday’s game was interrupted for more than 10 minutes midway through the overtime when a pane of glass shattered when Everett’s Jonathan Harty hit it with his skate after a check.
At Toyota Center in Kennewick
Everett0200-2
Tri-City0200-3
Tri-City won shootout 1-0.
First Period-No goals. Penalties-Broda, Tri-City (holding), 1:38; Alexander, Everett (interference), 3:48; Strong, Everett (slashing), 9:39; Fast, Tri-City (holding opponent stick), 9:52; Fransoo, Everett (holding), 15:50.
Second Period-1, Tri-City, Yellowhorn 31 (Vey, Swaby), 0:56 (pp). 2, Everett, Gutierrez 24 (Gendur, Fiala), 1:50 (pp). 3, Everett, Gutierrez 25 (Fiala, Gendur), 12:36 (pp). 4, Tri-City, Hoff 5 (Sim, Inglist), 16:00. Penalties-Gutierrez, Everett (hooking), 0:17; Procystier, Tri-City (high sticking), 1:26; Tesliuk, Tri-City (delay of game), 2:39; Gendur, Everett (high sticking), 3:11; Boogaard, Tri-City (high sticking), 6:01; Fransoo, Everett (interference), 7:35; Valach, Tri-City (holding), 12:11; Beach, Everett (fighting), 15:16; Schmidt, Tri-City (fighting), 15:16; Fransoo, Everett (holding), 17:33.
Third Period-No goals. Penalties-Inglis, Tri-City (hooking), 9:39; Gendur, Everett (hooking), 15:54.
Overtime-No goals. Penalties-Alexander, Everett (holding), 0:59; Aldred, Tri-City (slashing), 2:06.
Shootout-First round-Mueller, Everett, no goal; Yellow Horn, Tri-City, goal. Second round-Gutierrez, Everett, no goal; Felde, Tri-City, no goal. Third round-Fiala, Everett, no goal.
Shots on goal-Everett 6-10-8-3-27, Tri-City 12-13-9-3-37. Power play opportunities-Everett two of eight, Tri-City one of nine.
Goalies-Everett, Irving 20-5-0-2 (37 shots, 35 saves). Tri-City, Price 15-8-0-0 (27 shots, 25 saves).
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