EVERETT – The Everett Silvertips finished off training camp with a flourish Sunday night.
The Silvertips’ second annual Green vs. White Game had all the intensity of a mid-season contest, with the hits coming in hard and heavy. The White team prevailed 5-3 before several hundred fans at the Everett Events Center.
“That was a great pace out there,” Green team defenseman Mitch Love said. “When there’s that many people in the building you don’t want to disappoint and I thought a lot of the guys, from the veteran guys to the young guys, played their hearts out and left everything out on the table. That’s what the scouts and the coaching staff came to see, and it’s a nice finish to this week.”
Marc Desloges scored two goals and Riley Armstrong had a goal and two assists to lead the White team. Jonathan Millhouse and Brady Calla scored the other goals for the White team.
Tyler Dietrich, Curtis Billsten and Jordan Funk scored for the Green team.
Sunday’s game signaled the end of training camp for Everett, which is looking to build on the success of its first season, when the Silvertips won the Western Conference championship. The Silvertips began training camp Thursday with 79 players. They pared that number down to 37 Sunday and will try to get down to about 24 by the start of the season.
“I’d say it was excellent,” was Armstrong’s evaluation of training camp. “It’s probably one of the best WHL camps I’ve ever seen. I’ve been going since I was 15 and this was one of the best.
“We had really good games out here during the camp, a couple of fights, and I think a lot of guys want to make this team just from the success we had last year.”
Everett coach Kevin Constantine also rated training camp as a success.
“We’re happy now,” Constantine said. “The first stage is just kind of narrowing your pool of players down to a group you can start working with. Now that camp moves into stage two, it’s can any of these guys play within a team system and learn a team system.”
For a preseason scrimmage between teammates, Sunday’s game was remarkably physical. Armstrong – the makeshift White captain with a “C” jury-rigged onto his jersey with black tape – collided with Green goalie Michael Wall three times in the first period and also got into a brief tussle with Love. In addition, there were eight penalties called, even though the referee appeared reluctant early on to whistle any infractions.
“It was actually a better game than I thought it would be,” Armstrong said. “It was pretty quick, the goalies made some good saves and there were a lot of nice plays out there.
“It was definitely intense,” Armstrong added. “Even though me and Mitch put in nine holes (of golf) before we came out here, we still had the intensity in us to come out and play.”
The intensity didn’t surprise Constantine.
“I think that’s good,” Constantine said. “It just shows that they’re competitive. I did expect that knowing this group. That was why they were successful last year, because they love to compete.”
Among the newcomers, 18-year-old Czech forward Karel Hromas impressed. Hromas, a fourth-round pick by the Chicago Blackhawks in the 2004 NHL Draft, showed off good speed and was dangerous in the offensive end the entire game.
It was also a chance for the public to get a glimpse of the Silvertips’ future. Five players born in 1989 made the cut for the game: defenseman Eric Doyle, the team’s first-round pick in the 2004 Bantam Draft, forwards Millhouse, Mitchel Wall and Matt Meropoulis, and defenseman Trevor Conrad.
The Green team got onto the board first at 6:17 of the first period thanks to some flashy stickhandling by Zach Hamill. Hamill weaved his way through traffic into the middle before finding Dietrich open in the right slot. Dietrich one-timed a shot past Leland Irving to make it 1-0.
But the White team came roaring back in the second period, scoring four straight against Green backup goalie Kurt Jory. Millhouse got the first at 6:46, scoring from in close after a feed from Ryan Blatchford. Then Desloges scored twice in three minutes, finishing off a great passing sequence involving Armstrong and Calla at 12:00, then cutting in from the corner and backhanding it in on the power play at 14:56. Calla finished off White’s run, displaying his incredible speed as he raced past Conrad and finished off the one-on-one at 17:35, making it 4-1.
The Green team made a game out of it in the third, scoring twice to cut the lead to 4-3. Billsten’s solo effort, powering through two defenders, made it 4-2 at 4:57, and Funk’s slap shot from the left point at 8:47 cut the lead to one.
But Armstrong put the game away for the White team at 16:58, going coast-to-coast on the power play to finish off the scoring.
Slap shots: Three players, 20-year-old forward Barry Horman, 17-year-old forward Mitchell Ruminski, and 15-year-old defenseman Kodie Hemmons, are still with the team but sat out the game with minor injuries. … When democratic presidential candidate John Kerry was in town Friday, Constantine ran into him in the halls of the Everett Events Center and jokingly told him, “I’d like you to play center for us, but you’re too left wing.” . … The Silvertips hold their Everett Silvertips Preseason Tournament on Friday, Saturday and Sunday at the Everett Events Center. The four other teams from the U.S. Division plus Vancouver will participate. There will be three games each day, with the Silvertips playing at 7:05 p.m. each night.
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