MEDICINE HAT, Alberta — Uh-oh. The Everett Silvertips have got trouble.
From offense to goaltending, there seem to be all kinds of gremlins working their mischief with
Everett, and the Silvertips find themselves in a deep hole after losing 3-0 to the Medicine Hat
Tigers on Saturday night in Game 2 of the Western Hockey League Championship Series.
Clarke MacArthur scored twice, Darren Reid added an empty-net goal and Kevin Nastiuk made 15 saves for the shutout as Medicine Hat took a 2-0 series lead. Game 3 is Tuesday in Everett.
Despite being down, the Silvertips aren’t ready to push the panic button just yet.
"It’s early in the series right now," Everett forward John Dahl said. "I guess that’s why you call it home-ice advantage. We’ve been lucky to get a split in every other rink we’ve played in this year. Right now they took the first two at home against us and we’re going back to our rink feeling very confident about that.
"So by any means I don’t think we’ve got our backs against the wall, we just have a lot of work to get done right now. Hopefully we’ll get back home, get the next two games and make this a best-of-three."
Perhaps the Silvertips should be eyeing that panic button a little more closely. Everett has some serious issues. The Silvertips have created next to no offense so far in the series — just 19 shots on goal in Game 1 and a paltry 15 in Game 2 — and goalie Jeff Harvey, the team’s most valuable player, was pulled after one period Saturday, giving up a pair of power-play goals in the first.
The most troubling issue is the offense, which went 0-for-8 on the power play and essentially
gave Nastiuk a night off.
"Trying to get pucks deep, getting shots on net and getting traffic in front of the goalie, all
three of those things are basically not there and not in the works with our team right now," Dahl
said. "We’re just not giving ourselves a chance at all to create any offense whatsoever. On top of that, when your power play doesn’t score any goals in the first two games of a series and just one goal in two games, that basically sums it up.
"Right now, going back to Everett here, we’re going to have to get back down to the basics and start working hard again," Dahl continued.
"Right now we might be taking things for granted a little too much and forgot how we got here in the first place, which is hard work down low and getting pucks on net and getting gritty goals."
Medicine Hat came into the series with the reputation of an offensive team, leading the WHL in scoring during the regular season. However, Medicine Hat has proven to be capable defensively as well.
"Right from the start of the year we built upon defense because we knew we had the guys for
offense," MacArthur said. "So we’ve been taking a lot of pride in our defensive game, and we had a pretty good effort tonight."
Harvey, who had a rough time when Swift Current faced Medicine Hat in the playoffs last season and was hounded by the Tigers fans throughout the first two games, was pulled after the first period, having given up two power-play goals on 10 shots. Michael Wall played the final two periods and stopped all 21 shots he faced.
"There’s a million reasons to pull goalies," Everett coach Kevin Constantine said. "One is you
just don’t think he’s having a good night, two is you want to change momentum of the game, three is you want to give a goalie a rest. There’s lots of different reasons to pull goalies, it’s not necessarily because he played bad."
However, Constantine declined to specify which of the reasons applied when he pulled Harvey on Saturday.
During a penalty-riddled first period — 12 penalties resulted in six power plays for Everett, five for Medicine Hat and about as much five-on-five time as your average television commercial — it was the Tigers who took advantage. MacArthur scored a pair of power-play goals to give Medicine Hat a 2-0 lead.
The first came at 8:24. Right after a faceoff, Ryan Hollweg, in the left circle, spotted MacArthur ghosting in at the far post. Hollweg fired a pass across the crease, where MacArthur one-timed the puck into the goal, giving Medicine Hat the lead with his seventh goal of the playoffs. MacArthur scored his eighth of the postseason nine minutes later. MacArthur was skating along the blue line and when he reached the center point, he wristed a shot toward goal that snuck under Harvey’s left pad to make it 2-0 at 19:36.
Wall came out to start in goal for Everett in the second and the bleeding stopped for the
Silvertips. Medicine Hat didn’t score again until 2:44 remained in the game, when Reid scored his 10th of the playoffs into an empty net.
Slap shots: The Silvertips made national television in Canada on Saturday. Between the first and second periods of CBC’s broadcast of the NHL playoff game between the Calgary Flames and the Detroit Red Wings, CBC broadcaster Ron MacLean opened a package sent from Everett with various pieces of Silvertips paraphernalia. … Everett left wing Tyler Dietrich, listed as day-to-day with lingering effects from a hit to the head suffered in the second round against Vancouver, was scratched for the seventh straight game.
Tigers 3, Silvertips 0
Everett000—0
Medicine Hat201—3
| First Period—1, Medicine Hat, MacArthur 7 (Hollweg, St. Jacques), 8:24 (pp). 2, Medicine Hat, MacArthur 8 (Seidenberg, Barker), 19:36 (pp).
Second Period—No goals. Third Period—3, Medicine Hat, Reid 10 (Regier, Meyer), 17:16 (en). Shots on goal—Everett 5-7-3—15. Medicine Hat 10-9-13—32. Power-play opportunities—Everett 0 of 8. Medicine Hat 2 of 8. Goalies—Everett, Harvey 11-6 (10 shots, 8 saves), Wall (21 shots, 21 saves). Medicine Hat, Nastiuk 14-4 (15 shots, 15 saves). |
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