The Everett Silvertips cut practice a bit short Friday, but that makes sense given tomorrow’s home opener against Spokane at 7:05 at Xfinity Arena.
I should qualify that by saying practice officially ended early. A number of players stuck around to work on shots and get extra ice time. Goaltender Carter Hart shed the pads and was taking left-handed slap shots from the high slot.
Practice itself featured more power play work. It’s still “a work in progress” per head coach Kevin Constantine.
“It takes time to be good on power plays and it takes special people,” Constantine said. “It was nice to get a goal on it (last Sunday).”
Yan Khomenko (head) and Cole MacDonald (undisclosed) were both back on the ice skating with the team. Tristen Pfeifer (shoulder) did not skate, but he said earlier in the week that he hopes to be able to play Saturday. It looks like that decision will be made closer to game time.
During the preseason the Tips struggled when playing their first game after a week off. The opposite has proven true so far in the regular season as the season opener at Prince George was far better than the game two days later, and Everett also looked solid in its win over Portland after six days off.
Constantine also lauded the effort the Tips put forth last week – particularly their response to going down a goal to the Winterhawks.
“You hope that we’ve learned that you when you take a week off you really have to switch on emotionally when the game starts,” Constantine said. “Hopefully we’ve learned that – I don’t know. Hopefully that got fixed in the preseason. The other important thing that got fixed between PG on Sunday and Portland on Saturday was our response to going down a goal. We didn’t compete very hard after going down a goal in PG, and in Portland we kept competing, so that was a real positive step.”
On Thursday Xfinity Arena hosted a meet-and-greet for Silvertips season ticket holders. Players sat in tables of two along the concourse while they signed autographs and posed for pictures. I took a few photos of my own for your perusal.
Follow Silvertips writer Jesse Geleynse on Twitter @jessegeleynse.
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