Both the Everett Silvertips and Seattle Thunderbirds gained three out of a possible four points in this weekend’s home-and-home. Each presumably also earned a modicum of confidence in beating the opposing team at home.
True, Seattle had won previously at Everett, but that was back in November against 15-year-old call-up Blake Lyda. Meanwhile the Tips slew a mental dragon with Friday’s win at ShoWare Center to snap an 11-game road losing streak to the T-Birds.
On Friday Everett took the early 1-0 lead:
More of these plz. pic.twitter.com/I8gUJTHrhP
— Everett Silvertips (@WHLsilvertips) February 18, 2018
And later tied it 2-2:
Now this… this is what we like to see. pic.twitter.com/77mzNcwUUl
— Everett Silvertips (@WHLsilvertips) February 18, 2018
The Thunderbirds scored twice in-between. That was it until the skills competition.
Seattle may be occupying the Western Conference’s final wild card slot, but the T-Birds’ size and physicality continues to bedevil and confound the Tips – particularly on special teams.
In this weekend’s two games Everett was just 1-for-10 on the power play while Seattle was 3-for-5.
The Tips were 0-for-5 Saturday.
“The difference this time of year is special teams,” Williams said. “If we score on our power plays, either one or two of them, there’s the difference in the hockey game.”
Later Williams added:
“Their power play is good. They get up top, they shoot it, they out-muscle us net-front and that’s how the goals go in. It’s the same reason we haven’t had success (on the power play) either, because they’re out-muscling us in front of their net. We’re getting rebounds, but we’re getting knocked off the puck too easily and not wanting to hang around and battle for those pucks. So it’s something we’ll definitely have to address and look at.”
Former Everett Silvertips netminder Dorrin Luding got the win in net for Seattle with 41 saves. Meanwhile, former Seattle Thunderbirds forward Luke Ormsby assisted Martin Fasko-Rudas as the Silvertips took the 1-0 lead in the first period.
Seattle sent Ormsby to Everett in early November for a 2018 ninth-round bantam pick. Three weeks later, Everett sent Luding to Seattle for the same bantam pick.
So in essence Ormsby and Luding were traded for each another.
For the latest Silvertips news follow Jesse Geleynse on Twitter.
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