EVERETT — They both arrived in Everett midstream and to little fanfare.
Three-and-a-half months ago, Scott MacDonald was trying to put his junior hockey career back together, plying his trade in the junior A British Columbia Hockey League after being banished from the Western Hockey League.
Six weeks ago, Clayton Cumiskey was toiling away in anonymity for an Edmonton Oil Kings team that was headed nowhere.
The Everett Silvertips plucked both off the scrap heap, and since coming together with the Tips the two have become almost an inseparable pair on the ice, performing an unsung role for an Everett team that’s on a roll.
“I really like playing with him,” Cumiskey said of his partnership with MacDonald. “He’s a good guy both on and off the ice and we have good chemistry.”
Since being paired on a line for Everett’s game against Tri-City on Jan. 2, it’s been rare that one has been on the ice without the other. The 19-year-old Cumiskey centers Everett’s third line, with the 18-year-old MacDonald holding down the right wing. The Tips have cycled through any number of left wingers on that line, but Cumiskey and MacDonald have been the constants.
On special teams Cumiskey and MacDonald are again a pair as they comprise one of Everett’s top penalty-killing forward duos.
Neither has lit the scoresheet on fire — Cumiskey has seven points in 20 games with Everett and MacDonald has 16 points in 44 games. But the Tips are 16-2 since the two were paired together, and their partnership has been a part of that success.
“They’re somewhat similar players,” Everett coach Craig Hartsburg said. “Their stats are kind of the same, they’re good workers. I think they both have good skills, and with a little more confidence I think they can do a little more for us offensively. But right now they’re doing a good job of being real responsible players for us.”
MacDonald, who spent last season with the Chilliwack Bruins, was cut loose by the Bruins during the preseason. He was subsequently dropped from Chilliwack’s 50-player protected list and was suiting up for the BCHL’s Westside Warriors, available to any WHL team when Everett came calling in late October, giving MacDonald a second chance.
Cumiskey was an original member of the Oil Kings when they began play as an expansion team in 2008-09. He spent two-and-a-half seasons in Edmonton, primarily as a depth forward, before being acquired in a trade in late December for enforcer Cameron Abney.
Their partnership, which began in the third game after Cumiskey joined the team, developed not as part of some grand scheme, but rather as a result of circumstance. Hartsburg, in an effort to get captain Zack Dailey going offensively, moved Dailey to right wing alongside Shane Harper and Chris Langkow. That left a hole centering the third line, and Cumiskey was drafted into that duty.
The move worked for all parties. Dailey has been on fire since the change, racking up 21 points in 18 games. And Cumiskey and MacDonald have formed the core of a third line that’s held its own against opponents’ top units.
“As a coach, when players like that are responsible for you, it’s a big help for your team because you don’t have to worry about them being on the ice,” Hartsburg said. “When we’re on the road and you can’t get your own match-ups, they end up playing against the other team’s top line some shifts and have done a good job.”
Even off the ice Cumiskey and MacDonald have become a pair. Both hail from the Lower Mainland region of B.C. — Cumiskey from Abbotsford, MacDonald from Surrey — and both are billeted near one another in Everett.
“We hang out quite a bit,” MacDonald said. “We play video games together and ride together to the rink. We live near each other, so naturally we hang out a lot.”
Going forward, Cumiskey and MacDonald will be asked to continue providing solid play, particularly in their own zone. They’ll also be asked to provide a solid platform from which young players like Josh Winquist and Campbell Elynuik can learn and develop while playing on their left wing.
And if they can chip in with the occasional goal, so much the better.
“We’d like to maybe put up a few more points,” Cumiskey said, “but really we just want to make sure we stick to our game and not get too far away from that.”
And one can be sure they’re be doing it as a unit.
Nick Patterson’s Silvertips blog: http://www.heraldnet.com/silvertipsblog
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