SEATTLE – The Everett Silvertips are beginning to wonder what they have to do to get a win.
Everett turned in another strong effort, but again left with nothing to show for it, falling 3-2 to the Seattle Thunderbirds on Saturday night in a Western Hockey League game.
For the third straight game Everett played well enough to win, but still ended up on the losing end. As a result, the Silvertips (21-21-6-2) lost their fifth straight, have lost nine of their last 10, and with Portland beating Tri-City on Saturday, Everett fell into third place in the U.S. Division.
“Guys have competed hard for three games in a row now and just haven’t been shown the results,” Everett captain Mitch Love said. “I don’t know what to say. All you can do is keep working hard. You can’t put your head down and figure we’re not going to get out of this funk.”
Aaron Gagnon scored twice in the third period as Seattle (34-14-0-1) broke free from a 1-1 tie. Clayton Barthel added a goal and two assists for the T-birds and Bryan Bridges made 21 saves in goal.
Zach Hamill and Torrie Wheat scored for Everett while Leland Irving made 17 stops in goal.
How frustrating has it gotten for Everett? Even the most reliable aspect of the Silvertips’ game – its penalty killing – betrayed Everett on Saturday night. Everett came into the game with the top-ranked penalty-killing unit in the league. But Gagnon scored on each of Seattle’s power plays in the third period.
“Our penalty kill has to come up big,” Love said. “We have the No. 1-ranked penalty kill in the league for a reason. We didn’t show that tonight and that was the deciding factor in the game.”
Seattle, which came into the game ranked 15th in the league on the power play, converting just 13.7 percent of its power-play opportunities, finished two-for-three with the man advantage.
” (The power play) positively impacted our game and we haven’t been able to say that many times this year,” Seattle coach Rob Sumner said. “It certainly gave us some life. We’ve had games where our power play has dragged the life right out of us. It created energy for us today and we got good scoring chances.”
Everett fought tooth and nail to get back into it. For the second straight game Everett coach Kevin Constantine pulled his goalie midway through the third period while trailing by two, and for the second straight game it paid off. Wheat scored on the power play at 12 minutes, 9 seconds of the third period, converting a pass from Karel Hromas to cut the lead to 3-2. Although the Tips created more scoring opportunities, they couldn’t find the net again.
“I don’t feel we competed this hard at the beginning of the year when we were getting the results,” Love said. “Now we’re competing that hard and not getting the results. So I think it’s just a matter of time before the tide turns.”
Everett scored first for just the second time in its last 10 games when Hamill found the net 1:42 into the game. Cody Thoring intercepted a pass at the blue line and although Brady Calla had the puck poked away, it came to Hamill in front, who backhanded a shot into the upper corner to make it 1-0.
Seattle tied the score in the dying moment of the period. After a faceoff in the Everett zone with 7.5 seconds remaining, a scrum ensued in front of the net and Barthel backhanded a shot through the traffic just as time expired to tie the score at 1-1.
Slap shots: Seattle played without center Yashar Farmanara, who’s been a thorn in Everett’s side the past two seasons, for the second straight night because of a shoulder injury. However, defenseman Matthew Hansen was back in the lineup after sitting out Friday’s 4-2 victory over Kamloops because of an ankle injury. … Everett suited the same 20 players it fielded in its 4-2 home loss to Portland on Friday, a rarity for a team that’s had many injuries to deal with lately.
Thunderbirds 3, Silvertips 2
Everett101-2
Seattle102-3
First Period-1, Everett, Hamill 7 (Calla, Dietrich), 1:42. 2, Seattle, Barthel 4 (Metcalfe, Gagnon), 19:59.
Second Period-No goals.
Third Period-3, Seattle, Gagnon 25 (FitzGerald, Barthel), 3:40 (pp). 4, Seattle, Gagnon 26 (Barthel, Couture), 9:19 (pp). 5, Everett, Wheat 19 (Hromas, Love), 12:09 (pp).
Shots on goal-Everett 4-5-14-23. Seattle 7-5-8-20. Power-play opportunities-Everett 1 of 3. Seattle 2 of 3.
Goalies-Everett, Irving 5-7-1 (20 shots, 17 saves). Seattle, Bridges 27-11 (23 shots, 21 saves).
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