EVERETT – For the second straight night at the Everett Silvertips Pre-Season Tournament, Everett came away with a tie.
But the manner in which this tie came about felt a whole lot better to the Silvertips than the previous one did.
Everett rallied from a two-goal deficit, scoring twice in the third period, and the Silvertips skated to a 2-2 tie with the Seattle Thunderbirds on Saturday night.
Before an Everett Events Center crowd of 2,594, new European player Karel Hromas and Marc Desloges scored goals and Riley Armstrong had a pair of assists for Everett, which is 0-0-2 in exhibition play.
“It’s our Puget Sound rivals and we were down 2-0 and we battled back pretty hard,” Armstrong said. “It’s good to see that a lot of guys who are still earning spots are coming out with an effort like that.”
The Silvertips fielded a more experienced squad Saturday than in Friday’s 3-3 tie against Spokane, when the Chiefs scored with 39.4 seconds remaining in regulation. Twenty-year-olds Armstrong and Mitch Love skated for the first time in the exhibition season, as did Hromas.
“We knew how Everett was going to play,” Seattle coach Rob Sumner said. “They didn’t disappoint. They’re a very strong-checking, disciplined, hard-working team, so I’m happy that the team we used tonight got to see that tight type of game and we know that against those guys it’s never over until the end. They proved that again tonight.”
Everett appeared to be in big trouble when Seattle’s Mitch Fadden scored after a sustained stretch of pressure at 3 minutes, 12 seconds of the third period to give the T-birds a 2-0 lead.
But the Silvertips did exactly what they needed to, scoring less than two minutes later. The puck was played behind the Seattle net, where T-birds goalie Josh Lepp held it up for a teammate. However, Armstrong raced to the puck first and immediately zipped a pass out front to Hromas. With Lepp stranded, Hromas scored into a open net at 4:42 to put the Tips back into the game.
Then after Love took on Seattle strongman Zach FitzGerald in a fight at 6:18, the Tips picked up the pace and were rewarded six minutes later. Desloges played a diagonal pass to release Armstrong on the right. Armstrong skated into the zone and shot from the edge of the circle. Lepp blocked the shot, but the rebound went into the left slot, where Desloges skated in and scored to tie it at 2-2.
Then in overtime both teams had golden opportunities to win. Tyler Dietrich and Curtis Billsten both hit posts from point-blank range, and Seattle’s Nate Thompson had a breakaway in the finals seconds, but also hit the post.
“I think we started off strong,” Armstrong said. “In the second period we let down our guard a little bit, we didn’t play that well. But into the third, after Mitch’s fight, I think we picked it up a lot.”
Everett had all kinds of chances in the first period, outshooting the T-birds 12-3, but was unable to put one past Seattle netminder Andrew Pinsent. The Silvertips even had 1:31 of five-on-three towards the end of the period, but couldn’t convert.
The game remained scoreless until the final minute of the second period. Seattle’s Derek Coture brought the puck into the zone on the left and had his first and second shots saved by Michael Wall, but on the third attempt he took the puck out of the air and swept it in to give the T-birds a 1-0 lead with 51.3 seconds remaining in the period.
Slap shots: Everett 16-year-old forward Brennan Zasitko was back in the lineup Saturday. Zasitko dressed and played early in Friday night’s 3-3 tie against Spokane, but left the game because he was feeling ill. … Among Seattle’s scratches was 20-year-old forward Tyler Metcalfe, the team’s leading scorer from last season. Also, forward Chris Durand, one of the top 17-year-old prospects in the league, continued to sit out as he attempts to recover from a knee injury suffered during the summer while training with the Canadian U-18 team.
Silvertips 2, Thunderbirds 2
Seattle0110-2
Everett0020-2
First Period-No goals.
Second Period-1, Seattle, Couture 1, 19:09.
Third Period-2, Seattle, Fadden 1 (FitzGerald, Couture), 3:12. 3, Everett, Hromas 1 (Armstrong), 4:42. 4, Everett, Desloges 1 (Armstrong), 12:35.
Overtime-No goals.
Shots on goal-Seattle 3-11-12-1-27. Everett 12-4-8-3-27. Power-play opportunities-Seattle 0 of 5. Everett 0 of 8.
Goalies-Seattle, Pinsent (15 shots, 15 saves), Lepp 0-0-1 (12 shots, 10 saves). Everett, Irving (10 shots, 10 saves), Wall 0-0-1 (17 shots, 15 saves).
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