The Everett Silvertips are two-thirds of the way through their biennial trip to the Western Hockey League’s East Division. So far, they are 3-1.
That mark includes a 2-1 loss at Brandon to open the trip followed by two convincing wins at Moose Jaw and Regina, and a 2-1 shootout victory at Saskatoon on Wednesday.
Despite the 4-2 win over top-ranked Regina on Tuesday, Tips assistant coach Mitch Love sounded more pleased with the effort the Everett defense gave in Wednesday’s win as Everett clamped down and held the Blades scoreless through the final 54:10 of regulation and overtime.
“I thought we didn’t turn over as many pucks on breakouts,” Love said Wednesday in a post-game interview on 1380 KRKO. “Now it’s a combination of a lot of different things. That’s your (defense), it’s your (centers), it’s your wingers, it’s the combination of different things down there. I thought as a whole, we did a much better job of breaking pucks out and not turning pucks over, and I think it was a big factor in the hockey game.”
Over their past five games, the Tips (34-12-8-2, 78 points) are allowing just one goal per game and have a 4-1-0-0 record with two shutouts. That comes after they allowed 4.29 goals per game during the seven-game winless streak that preceded the trip east.
It could be coincidental that this recent spurt of success is coming on Everett’s longest road trip of the year. Or maybe some of the players get inspired when they get to play in front of friends and family. Seven Silvertips hail from Manitoba. Another seven are from Alberta (significantly closer to Saskatchewan than to Everett) and the Tips have had sizable rooting sections at each game.
“It’s a little bit bigger deal because we only come out here once every two years, but your strategies don’t change and you still have to make your focus the game,” Everett head coach Kevin Constantine said earlier this week. “There is a lot of downtime on a trip like this, too. You spend a lot of time in a hotel and having a chance to have lunch or dinner with family is great because it is family, but it also breaks up some of the downtime.”
So how does Everett’s success on this trip stack up with other long road trips? Actually it’s quite comparable to the others — at least in Constantine’s second go-around behind Everett’s bench.
Since Constantine returned prior to the 2013-14 season, the Tips have fared well against the Eastern Conference, both at home and on the road. So far this year the Tips have a 5-1 mark while playing host to the Central Division teams (including a 4-3 win over then-WHL leader Medicine Hat) and an 8-2 overall record against the Eastern Conference with two games remaining.
In 2013-14 the Tips were a perfect 6-0 at the Central teams and 4-1-1 at home against the East. During their last U.S. Division title-winning campaign, in 2014-15, the Tips went 4-1-1 against the Central teams at home and 5-1 at the East Division teams.
The lone exception was last year’s performance at the Central Division, where the Tips were just 1-4-0-1. However, they were 4-0-1-1 at home against the East Division in 2015-16 to earn a point in all six contests.
Next up is a Prince Albert team (15-38-3-2, 35 points) that decided well before the trade deadline that it was a “seller.” Nevertheless, the Raiders have won two straight and are 6-4 in their past 10 games, so you can bet the Tips won’t be taking them lightly when the puck drops at 5 p.m. at Art Hauser Centre.
The trip concludes with a 5 p.m. start against a solid Swift Current Broncos team Saturday before the Tips begin the long bus ride back to Western Washington.
For the latest Silvertips news, follow Jesse Geleynse on Twitter.
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