The Tips picked a heck of a time to hand a WHL debut to Ryan Murray. The 15-year-old defenseman, Everett’s first-round pick in last year’s bantam draft, is in the lineup tonight. He’s taking the place of Mike Alexander, who is scratched with an “upper body” injury, and you know you’re in the postseason when the injury descriptions start getting even more vague.
Other than Alexander, Everett’s other scratches are forwards Tyler Parker, Markus McCrea and Campbell Elynuik, and defensemen Alex Theriau and Paul Sohor, all healthy.
For Tri-City, the big news is that Chet Pickard is in net for the Americans tonight. Pickard missed the final seven games of the regular season because of a concussion, but Tri-City receives a big boost from getting its all-star goaltender back. Forward Petr Stoklasa (shoulder) and defenseman Brett Plouffe (leg) are out injured. Forward Spencer Asuchak is serving the final game of a two-game suspension, goaltender Drew Owsley is a healthy scratch.
One last note. Most of the material from my postgame blog boxes is going into the print edition during the playoffs, so to avoid redundancy I’ll be limiting those posts to the talking points section.
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