Silvertips surge for comeback to cap weekend sweep of Victoria

The Everett Silvertips unleashed their fury on the Victoria Royals on Saturday evening.

Heading into the third period trailing by a goal, Everett blitzed Victoria with five goals in less than 11 minutes, turning deficit into blowout in a heartbeat as the Tips came from behind to win 6-2 on the road Saturday to highlight last week’s action.

Everett was a big favorite in Saturday’s game. The Tips came into the contest leading Victoria by 20 points in the standings and were 3-0 against the Royals this season, outscoring Victoria 17-5. Everett beat the Royals 4-1 at home the previous night.

But the Tips found themselves down 2-1 after two periods, despite outshooting the Royals 29-11 as former Everett goaltender Braden Holt proved to be a tough nut to crack.

But the Tips overwhelmed the Royals from the opening puck drop in the third. Everett needed just 21 seconds to tie it up as Julius Miettinen’s cross-crease feed on the power play bounced off teammate Ben Hemmerling and into the net to make it 2-2 to open the floodgates.

Everett took the lead a mere 56 seconds later when Dominik Rymon put home a rebound off a point shot that was blocked in the slot. Then three goals 2:06 apart midway through the period by Austin Roest, Rymon and Lukas Kaplan ended the game as a contest.

“I think a lot of it was we just started playing inside the dots and getting to the net,” Everett coach Dennis Williams said via text when asked about the third-period goal barrage. “There was way too much perimeter play in the first two periods. We started to play with some grit and get to the scoring areas in the third.”

With the sweep of the home-and-home set against Victoria, Everett improved to 41-18-2-3. The Tips remain in third place in the Western Conference and trail U.S. Division leader Portland by two points. However, the Tips made up no ground on the Winterhawks, and Portland still has three games in hand. With just two weeks remaining in the regular season it’s getting more and more difficult for Everett to pass the Winterhawks for the division title.

Three stars of the week

Third star: Parker Berge. The overage defenseman dished out three assists over the course of the two games, and along with defensive partner Kaden Hammell was a team-high plus-5. Berge now has 21 points (two goals, 19 assists) in 27 games since arriving via trade in late December.

Second star: Miettinen. The center in his 17-year-old season was Everett’s most consistent producer between the two games, registering a goal and two assists on Friday and a goal and an assist on Saturday. Since enduring a five-game pointless streak in mid-February, Miettinen has seven goals and six assists in his past six contests, finding the net in all six.

First star: Rymon. The 19-year-old winger was the big driver of Everett’s third-period explosion in Saturday’s comeback. He was in on each of the first four goals of the third, notching two goals and two assists, including the goal that stood up as the game winner.

The week ahead

For the second straight week Everett’s schedule consists of a home-and-home weekend set against a B.C. Division team, as the Tips play a pair against the Kelowna Rockets. Friday’s game is at Angel of the Winds Arena, while Saturday’s rematch is in Kelowna.

Kelowna has had an indifferent season, as the Rockets are hovering around .500 at 31-28-3-1. However, Kelowna has been on a roll lately, winning seven of its past eight, with the only defeat being a shootout loss against B.C. Division-leading Prince George. As a result the Rockets have moved into fifth place in the Western Conference and are just two points behind Wenatchee in the furious race for home-ice advantage in the first round of the playoffs.

Although Kelowna is well behind the Western Conference’s top teams, the Rockets feature some of the best top-end talent in the WHL. Eighteen-year-old forward Andrew Cristall (38 goals, 65 assists) ranks fifth in the league in scoring, while 17-year-old forward Tij Iginla (45 goals, 33 assists), the son of Hockey Hall of Famer Jarome Iginla, is expected to be a first-round pick in this year’s NHL draft.