EVERETT – The Seattle Seahawks on Monday night against the Philadelphia Eagles. Mike Tyson versus Peter McNeely. The battle of Little Bighorn. All classic mismatches.
Sunday night the Everett Events Center played host to a mismatch of similar proportions.
Kevin Nortz / The Herald
The Everett Silvertips had their way with the Spokane Chiefs, scoring five goals in the first 33 minutes, and the Tips cruised to a 5-1 victory over the bedraggled Chiefs.
Everett (29-17-2-1) scored at will on the power play. The Tips converted four of their first five opportunities into goals – scored by Zach Hamill, John Lammers, Shane Harper and Torrie Wheat – and Everett made it look almost casual against the wounded and weary Chiefs.
“They were missing a lot of key guys tonight and in the back of our heads we knew we had to take advantage of that,” Wheat said. “They still played unbelievably hard for the amount of guys they had in the lineup. If it wasn’t for our power play we maybe would have just squeaked it out.”
Meanwhile, the deck was completely stacked against the Chiefs (18-26-4-2). Not only does Spokane have the worst record in the Western Hockey League’s Western Conference, the Chiefs were playing their third game in three nights in three different cities, and Spokane was also playing three skaters short because of injuries.
All of which was a recipe for blowout.
“To be shorthanded obviously makes it a tougher task,” Spokane coach Bill Peters said. “But those are situations where you have to be disciplined and not put teams on the power play and be prepared to play a very smart game.”
Jason Fransoo also scored for Everett and goaltender Leland Irving finished with 33 saves. Lammers’ goal was his 26th of the season, breaking Wheat’s franchise record for goals in a season.
Michael Grabner scored for Spokane. Chiefs goalie Kevin Armstrong gave up four goals on 10 shots before being lifted midway through the second period. Thomas Stehr made nine saves in relief.
Everett’s power play is on fire. The Tips are 8-for-18 on the advantage the last two games. In Everett’s preceding three-game losing streak, the Tips were 1-for-18 on the power play.
“You have those nights,” Everett coach Kevin Constantine said about Everett’s power-play success. “If you look at the first three games of the last five, we did the same things on the power play those nights. Our power play hasn’t done anything different the last five games other than the puck going in.”
The result was an emphatic response to the brief skid. Everett, which beat Tri-City 6-1 on Friday, has outscored its opponents 11-2 the last two games.
“The practice before (the Tri-City victory) our coach (Kevin Constantine) pointed at the banners and said, ‘We’re blowing a good opportunity for maybe getting another one. It doesn’t seem like you guys want it right now,’ ” Wheat said.
”I think we responded in that game against Tri-City and came out hard, and I don’t know if we played our best game today but we got a win.”
The puck spent most of the first period in the Spokane zone and Everett emerged with a 2-0 lead. First, at 3:44, Jason Fransoo’s shot from the center point found its way past Armstrong to put Everett on the board. Then at 17:15 with the Tips on the power play, Wheat found Hamill veering into the right slot, and Hamill beat Armstrong high to the near side, making it 2-0.
Everett scored on all three of its power plays in the second period – needing a total of just 1:35 – to stretch the lead to 5-0 and turn it into a rout. Lammers began the onslaught by blowing a slap shot through Armstrong at 6:14, Harper followed with a slap shot of his own that deflected in off traffic at 10:05, and Wheat made a nice move around Stehr to score at 12:48.
Slap shots: Everett’s third-leading scorer Peter Mueller, who the Tips hoped to have back for Sunday’s game, sat out his third straight contest because of a concussion. Constantine said Mueller will be back for Wednesday’s game at Kelowna. … Spokane dressed just 15 skaters – three fewer than normal – because of injuries to forwards Jeff Lynch, Johannes Salmonsson, David Linsley and Myles Stoesz and defensemen Dan Mercer and Jared Spurgeon.
Silvertips 5, Chiefs 1
Spokane010-1
Everett230-5
First Period-1, Everett, Fransoo 3 (Hamill), 3:44. 2, Everett, Hamill 17 (Lammers, Heshka), 17:15 (pp). Penalties-Hamill, Everett (cross-checking), 8:51; Erickson, Spokane (hooking), 13:42; Hobson, Spokane (holding), 16:30.
Second Period-3, Everett, Lammers 26 (Heshka, Wheat), 6:14 (pp). 4, Everett, Harper 4 (Calla), 10:05 (pp). 5, Everett, Wheat 11 (Hamill, Heshka), 12:48 (pp). 6, Spokane, Grabner 17 (McCue, Falk), 16:21 (pp). Penalties-Heshka, Everett (hooking), 1:31; Szaszkiewicz, Spokane (high sticking), 5:08; Ja. Lynch, Spokane (hooking), 9:45; Magistrale, Spokane (holding), 12:39; Doyle, Everett (cross-checking), 15:53.
Third Period-No goals. Penalties-Sonne, Everett (elbowing), 2:12; McCue, Spokane (kneeing), 4:04; Fransoo, Everett (holding), 5:00; Bruton, Spokane (fighting), 10:17; Sonne, Everett (fighting), 10:17; Zimmerman, Spokane (roughing), 11:00; Haw, Spokane (roughing), 12:10; Harty, Everett (hooking), 13:55.
Shots on goal-Spokane 8-12-14-34. Everett 6-7-7-20. Power-play opportunities-Spokane 1 of 6. Everett 4 of 8.
Goalies-Spokane, Armstrong 15-12-1-2 (10 shots, 6 saves), Stehr (10 shots, 9 saves). Everett, Irving 26-15-1-1 (34 shots, 33 saves).
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