EVERETT — Landon Ferraro is just looking to catch one break, find that one moment to get both his and his team’s season back on track.
The Everett Silvertips captain is mired in a terrible goal-scoring slump. However, he believes finding the net just once and ending the drought will re-open the floodgates.
“I just need one to go in,” Ferraro said. “I don’t care how it goes in. If it goes off my pants or my shin pads or my face, at this point I don’t really care. I just need to get one in to get that relief, and I think once I get one they’ll start coming.”
Ferraro was Everett’s big offseason trade acquisition. The 19-year-old center arrived from Red Deer with the reputation of a goal scorer. He found the net 37 times in 68 games as a 17-year-old in 2008-09, and was subsequently selected in the second round of the NHL draft by the Detroit Red Wings. His addition was intended to replace the goal scoring lost by the graduation of Shane Harper.
But the goals have dried up for Ferraro. Ferraro has scored just five times this season, and he’s gone 19 games without finding the net — his last goal came way back on Oct. 22 at Kelowna. The drought is by far the longest of his WHL career. His previous longest goal-less streak was nine games early last season.
“Saying it’s been a little bit difficult would be a bit of an understatement,” Ferraro said. “It’s been a while. I think I’d be more frustrated right now if I wasn’t getting chances. The last six-to-10 games I feel like I’ve been playing well and getting my chances. I’m either just getting it blocked at the last second, and I’ve hit a bunch of posts in this last bit.
“As frustrating as it is, you can’t go into a game thinking, ‘It’s been this many games, I need to score.’ You just have to reassure yourself. I think of myself as a person who can put the puck in the net, I’ve done it before in this league, and I just need to get back to that.”
Everett coach Craig Hartsburg just wants Ferraro to continue playing hard, be responsible defensively and not dwell on the drought. Hartsburg believes eventually the puck will start going in for Ferraro.
“As a young player you start thinking about it way too much and put pressure on yourself,” said Hartsburg, who was quick to point out that Ferraro isn’t the only player on the team having difficulty scoring. “He’s a kid who cares deeply. He wants to do well for the team, he wants the team to do well, and you’re hoping that when he does get one it will relax him. I like the way he’s played, he’s trying and competing. It’s just that the puck isn’t going into the net for him.”
Ferraro’s attempts to snap his streak have been complicated by injuries. First, he suffered a concussion that caused him to miss eight games. Ferraro hasn’t scored since. Then the Tips had a series of forwards who suffered minor injuries, forcing Everett to constantly juggle its lines and making it more difficult to develop chemistry.
In the meantime, Ferraro continues to work in practice to regain his scoring touch.
“In practice every time I have the opportunity to take a shot — if it’s a shooting drill or a two-on-one drill or five-on-five in the zone — I try to take as many shots as I can,” Ferraro said. “After practice I make sure I shoot some pucks. It’s not like I’ve lost my shot. It’s getting a pass and having a quick release. I just have to make sure I get repetition so that when I get the puck in a game, it’s off my stick quick and where I want it to go.”
Ferraro’s scoring struggles mirror the team’s. Everett is now the lowest-scoring team in the league, having netted just 93 times in 39 games, an average of just 2.4 goals per game. The struggles have worsened since the Christmas break as the Tips have just two goals in three games so far in the second half.
“We have to figure something out quick,” Ferraro said. “We can’t win many games with one goal. You don’t need to get five, but you need to get two or three a game to at least give yourself a chance to win.”
Ferraro rediscovering his goal-scoring touch would go a long way toward accomplishing that.
Slap shots
Everett faces a challenging three-in-three weekend. The Tips play three games in three days in three different locations. The opponents — at home against Tri-City tonight, at Spokane on Saturday, at Portland on Sunday — are the top three teams in the Western Conference. … The Tips receive a boost this weekend with the returns of defensemen Rasmus Rissanen and Nick Walters and winger Jari Erricson from international duty. Rissanen was part of the Finland team that finished sixth at the World Junior Hockey Championships. Walters and Erricson helped Team Pacific win the bronze medal at the U-17 World Hockey Challenge. All three missed three Everett games because of their international commitments.
Nick Patterson’s Silvertips blog: http://www.heraldnet.com/silvertipsblog
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