EVERETT – The 2005-06 season was supposed to be one of transition for the Everett Silvertips.
Gone were the majority of players who took part in Everett’s remarkable expansion season in 2003-04. In their place was a talented but youthful group who were thought to be a little too green to make a serious run just yet.
But once again the Tips turned those expectations upside down.
Everett made it three straight successful WHL seasons by winning the U.S. Division and reaching the Western Conference finals. And although the sting of being swept by Vancouver in the conference finals still lingers, it can’t take away from what the Tips accomplished.
“We started off again with people not expecting too much from us,” captain Torrie Wheat said. “We were a very young team again and we proved everyone wrong.”
This year’s team was the first in which a majority of the players were home grown – just four remained from the first season. Included on the team were 11 first-year players, and 13 of the 25 were either in their 17-year-old or 16-year-old season.
Yet the results remained the same. The Tips recorded the best record in franchise history at 40-27-2-3 for their second division title in three years. Then they defeated Tri-City and defending league champion Kelowna in the playoffs before bowing out against Vancouver. Everett now has three banners and six playoff-series victories in its three seasons.
“It’s always disappointing when you lose,” Everett coach Kevin Constantine said. “But you try to separate your emotions from the disappointment and look at the season and I thought it was pretty good. There’s only a couple teams that can lay claim to having progressed as far in the playoffs as we have the last three years.
“This year we didn’t go as far as the first year – we came close – but in a lot of ways this year was nearly as fun because we had a pretty dynamic team that had a lot of different quality ingredients.”
The main ingredient added to the pot this season was offense. In its first two seasons Everett was renown as a defense-first team. However, the addition of left wing John Lammers in an offseason trade and the signing of center Peter Mueller were designed to change that, and they didn’t disappoint.
Lammers led the team in scoring with a franchise single-season record of 75 points (38 goals, 37 assists).
“I had a good season and it was good to have team success,” Lammers said. “That’s what I wanted most when I came here, I wanted to have a winning team and I wanted to be part of something special. I think that’s what happened.”
With 58 points (26 goals, 32 assists) in 52 games, Mueller was one of four Tips to average more than a point a game.
“It was everything I thought it would be,” Mueller, who was recruited away from a commitment to the University of Minnesota, said about his first season in the WHL. “I thought it was unbelievable. There’s a great bunch of guys here and we had fun along the way.”
Even defenseman Shaun Heshka got in on the act, finishing second in the league in scoring among defensemen with 59 points (10 goals, 49 assists) as Everett scored 36 more goals than it had in any previous season.
“It was pretty fun to watch that and grow with this team,” said Wheat, who added 48 points in 43 games. “Myself, I had a very defensive role that first year, and even I’ve grown a little more offensive through the years.”
Also encouraging was the continued development of Everett class of 1988-born players. Goaltender Leland Irving, who was thrust into the starting role when incumbent Michael Wall was traded in the preseason, proved he was more than ready to take over. He started 66 of Everett’s 72 games in the regular season and went 37-22-1-3, finishing third in the league in both goals against average (1.91) and save percentage (.925).
In addition, center Zach Hamill (21 goals, 38 assists in 53 games) showed he can be an offensive force, while right wing Brady Calla and defensemen Jonathan Harty, Taylor Ellington and Graham Potuer all proved capable of taking on greater responsibilities.
The only real drawback for Everett was injuries. The Tips lost 198 man games to injury and illness this season, nearly double what it lost each of the previous two seasons. Those injuries slowed Everett in the regular season, then dealt a hammer blow in the playoffs when Irving went down just before the start of the conference championships.
Nonetheless, the Tips managed to overcome just about every obstacle in their path.
“I think the most-rewarding part of the year was there were so many question marks about the team, and probably some legitimate reasons why the possibility existed it might be our worst year,” Constantine said. “You’re not supposed to do well with a 17-year-old goaltender, we lost a lot of guys, there’s too many young players. Those things scared people because normally that is a recipe for disaster. So we knew maybe year three was going to be a real challenge, and to make the conference finals spoke volumes about the progress all those young players made, spoke volumes about the leadership of Wheat, Heshka, (Mark) Kress and (Cody Thoring).”
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