Well, the Tips are three games through their brutal five-game stretch against the Western Conference elite. The results look pretty ugly so far as Everett lost 5-1 at home against defending Memorial Cup champion Spokane last Wednesday, lost 4-1 at U.S. Division-leading Tri-City on Friday, then got thumped 7-0 at Western Conference-leading Vancouver on Saturday. Everett actually played pretty well in the first two games, but petered out in the end and still ended up on the wrong side of lopsided scorelines. The Vancouver game? Not so much.
It seems there’s a substantial gap between the top teams and Everett. Why is that? Well, here’s some food for thought. Let’s look at the talent level on these top teams, at least from an NHL perspective. Here are the players on each of those teams that were either drafted by NHL teams, invited to training camp or will be drafted high this year:
SPOKANE
Drayson Bowman (3rd 2007, Carolina)
Mitch Wahl (2nd 2008, Calgary)
Jared Spurgeon (6th 2008, New York Islanders)
Brady Calla (3rd 2006, Florida)
Ondrej Roman (5th 2007, Dallas)
Justin McCrae (4th 2007, Carolina)
Dustin Tokarski (5th 2008, Tampa Bay)
Tyler Johnson (camp invite, Phoenix)
Jared Cowen (sure-fire top-10 pick 2009)
TRI-CITY
Mitch Fadden (4th 2007, Tampa Bay)
Chet Pickard (1st 2008, Nashville)
Taylor Procyshen (camp invite, Tampa Bay)
Kruise Reddick (camp invite, Tampa Bay)
Tyler Schmidt (camp invite, Minnesota)
plus Jason Reese, an overager with more than 250 career WHL points
VANCOUVER
Casey Pierro-Zabotel (3rd 2007, Pittsburgh)
Jonathon Blum (1st 2007, Nashville)
Brent Regner (5th 2008, Columbus)
James Wright (4th 2008, Tampa Bay)
Nick Ross (1st 2007, Phoenix)
Tyson Sexsmith (3rd 2007, San Jose)
Evander Kane (sure-fire top-10 pick 2009)
And Everett? Since trading Kyle Beach the Tips have one player — that’s right, ONE — with an NHL tie: Defenseman Taylor Ellington was taken in the second round of the 2007 draft by Vancouver. That’s it. No other draft picks. No other players who received camp invites. The Tips’ three kids, Kellan Tochkin, Byron Froese and Tyler Maxwell, are going to be excellent players in this league for a long time, but none of the three cracked the top 100 among North American skaters in the NHL Central Scouting Bureau’s mid-term rankings. Even Portland, the team with the league’s worst record and a franchise that was a complete mess the previous two seasons, has more: defenseman Travis Ehrhardt (Detroit) and goaltender Kurtis Mucha (Phoenix) attended NHL camps last September.
The conclusion is obvious. Right now Everett just doesn’t have the talent level to compete with the league’s top teams. That’s not to say there isn’t talent on the roster, but most of it is concentrated in the 17- and 16-year-olds, many of whom are not impact players yet.
I suppose I come across as something of an apologist for Everett’s recent losses. However, I believe the above bears mentioning. Don’t be fooled by general manager Doug Soetaert’s use of words, this is a rebuilding season in Everett.
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