Everett Silvertips fans are feeling confident.
This week’s Seattle Sidelines poll was about the WHL championship series between the Tips and the Swift Current Broncos. The best-of-seven series is tied 1-1 after the opening two games in Swift Current, and the series switches to Everett for Games 3, 4 and 5 on Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday.
Therefore, this week’s poll asked readers to predict how many of those three home games Everett will win. Here’s the results:
POLL: The @WHLsilvertips and @SCBroncos play three games of @TheWHL championship series at @AOTWArena this week. How many of those will Everett win? Full context here: https://t.co/DPN9hIMVqH
— Nick Patterson (@NickHPatterson) May 7, 2018
Add the two together and nearly 90 percent of the responders believe Everett will use these home games to take control of the series. Almost half — 48 percent — of the voters believe the Tips win two of the three games, meaning they’d take a 3-2 series lead back to Swift Current for Games 6 and 7, while another 40 percent said Everett will win all three games at home, thus ending the series. A paltry 8 percent picked Swift Current to win two of three, while another 4 percent have the Broncos sweeping all three games to end the series.
It’ll be interesting to see how these games in Everett play out. First, I’m curious what kind of fan turnout there will be at Games 3 and 4. Everett has had solid and growing support throughout the playoffs, but every single one of the previous nine games at Angel of the Winds Arena has been on a Friday or Saturday night. Games 3 and 4 are on Tuesday and Wednesday, and during the regular season attendance dips considerably for midweek games. Everett still sold out midweek games during the WHL championship series in 2004, but that was a different time and a different team. We’ll see if the championship series has a similar draw this year.
I’m also curious to see how Everett plays at home. So far the Tips have been rather lackluster at home during the playoffs, going just 5-4 in their first nine home contests compared to a blistering 8-1 on the road. However, Everett was an impressive 25-8-2-1 at home during the regular season, including their 4-1 victory over Swift Current on Jan. 21 when both teams, for all intents and purposes, iced the same lineups they’re using in the championships series.
Lastly, I’m curious how the Tips fare in the faceoff circle. Watching Games 1 and 2 on the web broadcast I had the impression Everett was getting abused in the circle. The gamesheets confirm that as Swift Current was credited with winning 70 faceoffs over the first two games compared to just 51 for Everett. That’s 58 percent for the Broncos, which represents a huge advantage in gaining possession after stoppages. This is one area where it behooves the Tips to get better if they want to claim their first WHL championship.
We’ll find out the answers to all these questions beginning at 7:05 p.m. Tuesday night.
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