The Everett Silvertips just proved they can beat the best defensive team in the Western Hockey League.
Now they must prove they can beat the best offensive team in the league, too.
Everett begins the next chapter in its storybook first season when it opens the WHL championship series against the high-powered Medicine Hat Tigers tonight in Medicine Hat.
That offense will seriously test an Everett defense that so far has held strong against anything the rest of the league has thrown at it.
"Their depth up front is probably the best in the Western Hockey League," Everett defenseman Mitch Love said of the Tigers. "That’s something we’re going to have to key on and it’s going to be another war."
Fresh off defeating Kelowna, the top defensive team in the WHL, in the Western Conference finals, the Silvertips now face a team dripping with offensive talent. The Tigers, who defeated Red Deer four games to two to win the Eastern Conference title, have four lines capable of scoring and also feature the playoffs’ top scorer in Chris St. Jacques.
"Anyone who’s seen them play is going to notice their speed," said Everett forward Chad Bassen, who began the season with Medicine Hat before being released at the overager deadline. "Their speed is good. Then there’s their depth. They roll four lines and they work so hard.
"I think we just have to stick to our game plan. If we play good defense, pressure their defense and throw pucks on the net, we’ll be all right."
How deep is Medicine Hat’s offense? Consider this: The Tigers had eight players score at least 57 points during the regular season. Everett’s leading scorers, John Dahl and Riley Armstrong, each finished with 44.
Medicine Hat’s offense begins with St. Jacques. At 5-foot-9, 177 pounds, he’s one of the smallest players in the league, but he makes up for his lack of stature with skill and quickness. Right now St. Jacques, who led the Tigers in scoring during the regular season with 92 points (33 goals, 59 assists), is the runaway playoff leader in scoring with 23 points (10 goals, 13 assists) in 16 games.
But St. Jacques is merely one piece of Medicine Hat’s offensive puzzle. Twenty-year-olds Darren Reid and Ryan Hollweg, 19-year-olds Yannic Seidenberg and Steve Regier, and 18-year-olds Clarke MacArthur and Stefan Meyer can all seemingly score at will.
Add in 17-year-old Cam Barker, a gifted all-around defenseman who’s expected to be a lottery pick in this year’s NHL draft, and it’s easy to understand why the Tigers were able to lead the league in scoring this season with 277 regular-season goals, 43 more than second-highest scoring team, Swift Current.
"They play run-and-gun," Love said. "You have to get them to adapt to your style of play, ours being a one-goal hockey game. But it will be a lot of fun. Their fans are great and it will be the two loudest groups of fans in the Western Hockey League going head-to-head."
As ludicrous as it sounds when talking about an expansion team, the Silvertips may be in the drivers seat to advance to the Memorial Cup, which features the champions of the WHL, Ontario Hockey League, the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League and the host Kelowna Rockets. Goalkeeper Jeff Harvey has been an impenetrable wall during the playoffs, ranking first among goalies in goals-against-average (1.56), save percentage (.947) and shutouts (four). And Everett’s defense has succeeded in shutting down every opponent’s top scorers.
And there are other indicators that point toward Everett being the favorite. When Everett and Medicine Hat met during the regular season, Everett won 3-2 at Medicine Hat. The Silvertips feasted on the Eastern Conference during the regular season, going 6-2-2. The Silvertips controlled the series when they faced the best offensive team in the Western Conference, Vancouver. And Everett has already knocked off the No. 1 team in the league in Kelowna.
"In the playoffs, a lot of teams have to change their games to play playoff hockey," Armstrong said. "We’ve been playing that way all year and they’ve had to change, so for us it’s a little bit of an advantage. But they have way more skill and scoring power, so that’s something we’ll have to watch for sure."
One question for Everett is will the Silvertips be able to score enough goals to keep up with the Tigers? Everett needed miraculous overtime goals in each of the final three games against Kelowna just to reach the championship series. The Silvertips scored just 13 goals in the seven games against the Rockets, and Medicine Hat goalie Kevin Nastiuk is playing well. The 18-year-old Nastiuk, the reigning WHL Player of the Week, is 12-4 in the playoffs with a 2.23 goals-against-average and a .908 save percentage.
But the Silvertips are still confident about their chances.
"I think we just need to stick to our system," Armstrong said. "The coaches put together a great system that we’ve stuck with for three rounds and it’s paid off. In the next round we just have to stick to the system and hopefully that will do the job."
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