EVERETT – The last weekend of the Western Hockey League’s regular season is upon us, and the Everett Silvertips have just one unanswered question remaining:
Where are they going to be playing next Friday?
Everett heads into its final three games of the season already knowing Portland will be its first-round playoff opponent. What’s still to be determined is which team will have home-ice advantage when that playoff series begins.
“There’s definitely a lot to play for,” Everett defenseman Shaun Heshka said. “Second place is on the line here and we’ve got huge games these last three games. It might come down to the wire, just like last year (when the Silvertips clinched the division title in the season’s penultimate game), and it makes it a little more exciting.”
Everett (33-26-8-2) goes into the weekend leading Portland (32-26-5-5) by two points. Both teams have three games remaining: Everett plays host to Tri-City tonight, heads to Tri-City on Saturday and finishes up at Seattle on Sunday; Portland plays host to Seattle tonight, plays in Seattle on Saturday and returns home to face Tri-City on Sunday.
Everett can sew up sole possession of second place and home-ice advantage, regardless of what Portland does, by winning all three of its games or with two wins and a tie. Portland will need Everett to fail to win at least two of its games to have a chance of pulling ahead in the standings.
If the teams finish tied in the standings, the first tiebreaker is total wins. Everett has the advantage there, having one more win than Portland, but there are still scenarios where the teams can finish tied with the Winter Hawks accumulating one more victory.
If the teams finish tied in points and wins, the second tiebreaker is head-to-head. Everett owns that tiebreaker, having won the season series 5-3-2.
Therefore, Everett enters the weekend with a small, but distinct, advantage.
“We’re pretty much in the driver’s seat,” Heshka said. “If we win these games we’re for sure in second. We put destiny into our own hands, which is a good thing. But we still have those three to win.”
Despite the advantages, the Tips are heading into the weekend with the mindset that they can’t rely on Portland to slip up.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if Portland won all of their last three games,” Everett leading scorer Torrie Wheat said. “That means we have to win two of our last three to clinch second place.”
But with all the fuss over home-ice advantage, that may not be the biggest priority for Everett this weekend.
The Silvertips, who have battled injuries all season, want to remain as healthy as possible heading into the playoffs – center Zach Hamill, nursing an ankle sprain, will probably be held out this weekend so he can recover more fully.
Also, home ice has held little advantage in the series this season. Everett has not lost in Portland, going 3-0-2, Portland is 3-2 in Everett, and the visiting team controlled play in each game when the teams swapped road victories last weekend.
And, most importantly, the Tips want to head into the playoffs playing well, regardless of results.
“I think playing you best hockey overrides every other issue you need to talk about,” Everett coach Kevin Constantine said
“Your job when you put your skates on is to play your best, and that’s what you try to do every night. So your motivation isn’t necessarily to finish second, your motivation is to be the best you can, to have excellence, to pursue greatness every single time you put a jersey on. If we do that, hopefully the end result is home ice. But the bottom line is if you played hard every night, you don’t worry about the results.”
That message has been heard loud and clear by the players.
“Second place is huge,” Wheat said. “That’s what we’ve been playing the last few games for and that’s kind of our motivation. But also, these last few games we don’t just want to win, we want to win and feel we played well. We want to get the ball rolling going into the playoffs.”
But home-ice advantage would be nice, too.
“We feel really comfortable in our rink with our crowd and our fans,” Wheat said, “and I think that’s the way we’d like to start off the playoffs.”
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
