BLOG: Some final weekend reading before Silvertips host Fan Appreciation Night

The Everett Silvertips play their home finale tonight against Victoria. If they win and Seattle beats Portland, the Tips win their second consecutive U.S. Division banner.

Everett holds a four-point lead over Portland, but the Winterhawks hold a game in hand.

The Tips can also clinch if they win their final two games or through a host of other scenarios based on what the Winterhawks do.

However, it did not seem like that was foremost on head coach Dennis Williams’ mind following a quick, productive on-ice session at Angel of the Winds Arena on Thursday.

“Certainly we want to put as many banners up (as possible) – everyone does,” Williams said. “But for us as coaches the biggest concern is peaking at the right time and going into the playoffs with confidence and momentum.

“There’s games we play really well that we don’t win and there’s games we don’t play well that we do win,” he later added. “Hopefully these last two games have made us hungry… We have to remember what it’s like to win, and how to win and to appreciate it when we do win and don’t take it for granted. I think our group had a good response (today) here in the skate.”

Everett is coming off back-to-back losses Sunday at Portland and Tuesday at Tri-City. The very fact that two consecutive losses is news is perhaps an indicator of how dominant a season the Tips have put together. It was the first time they’ve lost back-to-back games since Jan. 5-6.

“It’s what happens when you’ve been in the position we’ve been in since Christmas – everything is magnified,” Williams said. “It wasn’t that I was disappointed with our games. There are some areas we have to be better at and some areas we were really good at. The guys have to learn from it and hopefully that brings back to how we appreciate winning and what it takes to win in this (conference) and division.”

Of bigger concern is Everett’s struggle to score 5-on-5. The Tips haven’t scored at even strength in eight periods going back to the first period last Saturday at Kent. We will see how that plays out in the final two regular-season games and when the postseason begins next weekend.

Everett’s percentage of goals scored on the power play – 30.6 percent – is the highest in the league. That can be an issue in the playoffs when officials tend to let more things go and penalties drop.

Williams has no problem with fewer penalties being called, saying “it’s playoff hockey.”

“They’re going to let that go both ways, and that’s why it’s even more important that we’ve gotta be better inside the dots and maybe that contributes to why we haven’t scored in eight periods 5-on-5,” he said. “We gotta make sure we’re getting in those areas and we’re going (laterally) in the offensive zone and moving pucks across and really fighting for those goals, and that’s something we addressed today.”

In other news:

– The Silvertips recalled 15-year-old goaltender Blake Lyda Thursday. Both Carter Hart and Dustin Wolf were at practice so this appears to be a move made simply to get Lyda back in town rather than to address an injury.

– Patrick Bajkov is two assists away from setting a new franchise career record:

For all the franchise records he's taken down this year, another one Patrick Bajkov is close on: Tips all-time assists.
Two more games to go. pic.twitter.com/zCGkr8TGX5
— Mike Benton (@Benton_Mike) March 16, 2018

– I appeared on the Pipeline Show podcast this week to talk Tips playoffs and the Tyler Maxwell allegations from two weeks ago. The Oregon minimum-wage exemption sought by the Portland Winterhawks died in committee, so it appears Maxwell’s testimony had some sway:

NEW #ThePipelineShow
✅ 🌭Prospect (@MontrealHotdogs)
✅ CHL Insider @JesseGeleynse @TommyGunsBarber
✅ CHL Insider @TCHIceQueen
✅ 🎙️@PeteKrupsky1433
✅ @CHN_AdamWodon @collegehockey
✅ Draft Spotlight: @EvanBouchard02
🔊 https://t.co/Lqhlx3bKuD
⬇️ https://t.co/f7uP5lkJXP pic.twitter.com/XCQOgJ47Bo
— Guy Flaming (@TPS_Guy) March 16, 2018