Silvertips’ season ends with 4-1 loss to Thunderbirds

KENT — The Everett Silvertips silenced many doubters and prognosticators during the course of a brilliant 2016-17 regular season that saw them stave off the preseason favorite Seattle Thunderbirds for the U.S. Division title.

However, it was the Thunderbirds who earned the last laugh as Seattle defeated its northern neighbors 4-1 before 5,438 fans at ShoWare Center Friday to sweep Everett 4-0 in their best-of-seven Western Conference semifinal series.

The defending Western Conference champion T-birds have yet to lose in the 2017 postseason and advanced to the conference finals for the second consecutive year. They will take on Kelowna in a reprise of last year’s conference finals that Seattle also swept.

The Tips, who reached the second round of the playoffs for the third straight season, remain in search of their first trip to the conference finals since 2006.

“You gotta give Seattle credit – they’re a helluva hockey club and they deserve it,” said Tips forward Dominic Zwerger who tallied Everett’s lone goal. “We know they’re a hard-working team so we thought if we out-competed them we’d have a chance. And I think we had a chance in all those games… I think we were right there but just didn’t get the bounce at the end.”

Everett proved unable to solve Seattle at ShoWare this season, finishing 0-5-1-1 including both regular and postseason play.

Keegan Kolesar scored two goals and had an assist while Mathew Barzal and Donovan Neuls tallied the other two goals for Seattle.

“(Both) teams pride themselves on work, they pride themselves on structure, but at the end of the day they had a better team than us,” head coach Kevin Constantine said. “They have a game-breaker type of guy in Barzal, they have a game-changing type of line in (Barzal’s) line, but they’ve got some depth up front too because guys like (Scott) Eansor and Neuls and so forth are also very good players.”

The Tips didn’t score first in any of the four games of the series — something they relied upon heavily during the regular season — and faced a three-goal deficit Friday for the second consecutive game.

The score belied what was Everett’s best first period of the series.

“Looking up with (six) minutes to go in the first period and seeing a shot clock that said ‘5-2 Everett’ was as good a start as we’ve had,” Constantine said. “In all the games we’ve played here that was territorially shot-wise, chance-wise, our best start, which is something I thought was really important in terms of having a chance to win the game.”

Nevertheless, Seattle took a 2-0 lead into the second period and pushed it to 3-0 at 6:24 on the power play when Barzal cashed in with a one-timer from the bottom of the left circle thanks to a tape-to-tape feed from Kolesar.

Everett got one back shorthanded when Zwerger picked Ethan Bear’s pocket at the Seattle blue line for a breakaway and stashed it past Carl Stankowski to make it 3-1.

But the T-birds answered at 12:51 when Kolesar’s low wrister off the rush beat Hart to make it 4-1 headed to the third.

That’s how it ended.

“This group believed until the last second of this game,” Zwerger said. “We said, ‘We never quit’ and I don’t think anybody quit. I’m really proud of those guys.”

Seattle’s first goal came in particularly deflating fashion for the Tips who were on their first power play. Aaron Irving knocked down a Seattle clear attempt, and it went right to Neuls for the breakaway as Everett’s power play was expiring. Neuls beat Carter Hart and Seattle led 1-0 at 14:03 in the first.

The T-birds added to their advantage less than three minutes later. Turner Ottenbreit fired a shot from the right point and Kolesar redirected it past Hart at 16:47 to push Seattle’s lead to 2-0.

“When you go into a game like that, (trailing) 0-3 in the series your belief system is starting to question,” Constantine said. “But you go through that first 15 minutes and all of a sudden that belief system starts to work again and I thought we were in great shape that way.

“And of course that changed with the two goals.”

Stankowski finished with 24 saves on 25 shots.

Hart saved 27 of Seattle’s 31 shots.

The Tips will lose overagers Lucas Skrumeda, Zwerger and Irving in the offseason. Skrumeda was an Everett-developed player who completed his third season with the Tips. Zwerger came over in a trade with Spokane at the beginning of the season, while Irving was a deadline acquisition from Edmonton.

Thunderbirds 4, Silvertips 1

Everett 0 1 0 — 1

Seattle 2 2 0 — 4

1st Period—1, Seattle, Neuls 5 14:03. 2, Seattle, Kolesar 5 (Ottenbreit, Gropp), 16:47. Penalties—Kolesar Sea (boarding), 12:02.

2nd Period—3, Seattle, Barzal 4 (Kolesar, True), 6:24 (PP). 4, Everett, Zwerger 4 10:05 (SH). 5, Seattle, Kolesar 6 (Hyman), 12:51. Penalties—Dewar Evt (slashing), 4:48; Fonteyne Evt (cross checking), 8:37; Strand Sea (tripping), 18:57.

3rd Period—No Scoring. Penalties—No Penalties.

Shots on Goal—Everett 7-6-12-25. Seattle 7-17-7-31.

Power Play Opportunities—Everett 0 / 2; Seattle 1 / 2.

Goalies—Everett, Hart (31 shots-27 saves). Seattle, Stankowski (25 shots-24 saves).

A—5,438

For the latest Silvertips news follow Jesse Geleynse on Twitter.