EVERETT — The attendees at Everett Silvertips rookie training camp were having such a good time, they decided to extend it for as long as possible.
After an epic 14-round shootout, Leeland Malkinson finally scored the deciding goal, giving Team White a 4-3 victory in the Green vs. White game Sunday afternoon at Comcast Arena.
Goaltender Brett Gagnon turned away 13 attempts in the shootout as Team White prevailed in the contest that brought rookie camp to a close.
“That was pretty long, the longest one I’ve ever been in actually,” Gagnon said of the shootout. “It felt pretty good. I always like shootouts, they’re pretty fun.”
Byron Froese, Carter Page and Markus McCrae scored during regulation for Team White, while goaltender John Paul Chapman went unscored upon during his 30 minutes of work.
Devan McLean scored twice in the third period to pull Team Green back from a two-goal deficit and force the shootout. Paul Grenier added a goal and an assist for Team Green, while netminder Kent Simpson allowed one goal in his half of the game.
“It was a great game, it was really competitive,” McLean said.
“That shootout was terrible,” McLean added with a wry smile.
Several notable players didn’t take part in the game. Forwards Kellan Tochkin and Brett Chartier and defenseman Paul Sohor were rested to prepare for the opening of main camp today, and defenseman Gabriel Minville sat out after taking substantial damage in a fight with Cameron Abney in Saturday night’s scrimmage.
But even without those players this one contained high drama until the end.
Team white seemed to be in control, leading 3-1 when McLean tipped in a shot by Devin Dambrauskas on the power play with 10 minutes, 39 seconds remaining in regulation, cutting the lead to one. McLean struck again on the power play at 14:06 as his high shot rebounded straight up, then bounced in at the post to tie it up.
It then appeared Green had won it with 2:33 remaining when McLean set up Josh Twietmeyer, but the goal was waived off for an unspecified reason.
That set up the shootout. Tyler Parker converted Team White’s second shot with a nice move to his forehand to take the lead. It appeared it was all over when Team Green’s Carter Shinkaruk had his attempt, on which the puck hit the underside of the crossbar and came out before deflecting back in off Gagnon’s back, waived off. However, after a discussion among the officials, the goal was given, tying it up at 1-1.
From there it was a long series of saves and missed shots against Gagnon and Team Green’s Tanner Hamilton. Malkinson finally ended it on the 28th attempt of the shootout, putting a shot into the top-right corner.
“The game went pretty good,” Gagnon said. “We came out solid and it was pretty fun. It was really good to get the victory.”
There were few quaility scoring chances early as the players tried to find their feet. The best came midway in when Team White’s Colin Hoffman smacked the crossbar with a wrister from distance.
Team White then broke the ice at 17:42 of the first period. Parker took the puck into the zone on the right, drew the defense, then dropped a centering pass to Froese, whose one-timer found the top corner to make it 1-0.
The goals came more frequently in the second period. First, Team White doubled its lead at 10:03 when, short-handed, Campbell Elynuik found Page open in front for a stuff shot, making it 2-0.
Green got back within one at 12:15. On the power play, Mark Lelievere’s wrister from the center point deflected into the right slot, where Grenier converted the rebound.
But White restored its two-goal advantage again with just 2.2 seconds remaining in the period. On the break, McCrae let fly with a slap shot from the left point that Hamilton got a glove on, but the puck trickled across the line, making it 3-1.
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