Royals hang on to beat Silvertips, even playoff series 2-2

VICTORIA, B.C. — The Everett Silvertips will make at least one more trip to Vancouver Island this season.

The Victoria Royals scored less than six minutes in and never trailed during their 2-1 win over the Tips in Game 4 of their Western Conference playoff quarterfinal before 4,637 fans Wednesday at Save-On-Foods Memorial Centre.

Victoria’s win evens the series at two games each and means the teams will be back in Victoria Sunday afternoon for Game 6.

However, the Tips have a chance to reclaim the series lead Friday when they play host to the Royals in Game 5 at Xfinity Arena.

“We talked about it (Tuesday) night how we thought they were going to put their best foot forward and obviously they did,” Everett assistant coach Mitch Love said in a postgame interview on 1380 KRKO-AM. “I thought they had an energetic start in getting that first goal in what seemed to be a must-win (for Victoria) because you don’t want to go into another team’s building down 3-1. They got that quick one and put us on our heels and we had to try to manufacture some offense.”

The Tips were again without the services of centers Riley Sutter and Devon Skoleski. Victoria scratched defenseman Scott Walford for the third consecutive game and forward Jack Walker for the second straight game.

Trailing 2-0 through two periods, the Tips appeared to get on the board midway through the third when Connor Dewar backhanded the puck past Griffen Outhouse. But the officials waved the goal off, stating Sean Richards had made contact with Outhouse in the crease.

Victoria’s Vladimir Bobylev took a double-minor penalty at 15:18 in the third to give the Tips some life. Patrick Bajkov broke up the shutout with his power-play wrister from the circle at 16:05, but the Tips were unable to score the equalizer.

The Royals scored the game’s first goal for the first time in the series. It came at 5:03 when Regan Nagy batted a bouncing puck into the net past Carter Hart for a 1-0 lead.

“There were a lot of positives in our game,” Love said. “I thought once we got woken up by their first goal our game started to go a little bit. We had opportunities. We didn’t score a lot of goals in the regular season and it looked like that again tonight and in the playoffs where everything is a little more tight-checking and a lot more physical play.”

Victoria pushed it to 2-0 just before the end of the second period. Matthew Phillips dug the puck out from the end boards and appeared to be headed for a wraparound attempt. Instead, Phillips found Dante Hannoun at the top of the crease and Hannoun beat Hart at 19:16.

Outhouse saved 30 of 31 shots while Hart stopped 18 of 20. It was the first time in the series the Tips have outshot the Royals, who have held Everett without an even-strength goal in back-to-back games.

Royals 2, Silvertips 1

Everett 0 0 1 — 1

Victoria 1 1 0 — 2

1st Period—1, Victoria, Nagy 1 (Bobylev), 5:03. Penalties—Nagy Vic (interference), 2:07; Peckford Vic (inter. on goaltender), 10:45; Walker Evt (tripping), 17:11.

2nd Period—2, Victoria, Hannoun 1 (Phillips, Dmytriw), 19:16. Penalties—Babych Evt (holding), 4:53; Juulsen Evt (hooking), 16:13.

3rd Period—3, Everett, Bajkov 4 (Davis, Zwerger), 16:05 (PP). Penalties—Bobylev Vic (cross checking, checking to the head), 15:18.

Shots on Goal—Everett 10-11-10-31. Victoria 7-7-6-20.

Power Play Opportunities—Everett 1 / 4; Victoria 0 / 3.

Goalies—Everett, Hart (20 shots-18 saves). Victoria, Outhouse (31 shots-30 saves).

A—4,637