The Everett Silvertips drew a pair of early starts Thursday and Friday at the Tri-City Americans preseason tournament in Kennewick.
The puck drops at 11 a.m. Thursday at the Toyota Center, where the Silvertips play Prince George. On Friday, Everett faces Portland at 11 a.m.
The Silvertips (3-0 in the preseason) are coming off an undefeated showing at last weekend’s Holiday Inn Classic at Xfinity Arena in Everett. The two wins included one-goal victories over Victoria and Portland, and a decisive 4-0 win over Spokane.
Everett will be without four players who played in last weekend’s preseason games as defensemen Noah Juulsen and Kevin Davis, forward Carson Stadnyk and goaltender Austin Lotz will be at NHL training camps. All the other teams are in the same situation, however, and Everett head coach Kevin Constantine said that means the competition level will be comparable to the Holiday Inn Classic.
“It just means you’re learning a lot about guys in roles they might have to fill at some point this season,” Constantine said.
This also serves as the final weekend for players to make a lasting impression on the coaching staff.
“After this weekend, you really want to use the next two exhibition games as season prep,” Constantine said. “You don’t necessarily want to use it as a tryout. In some ways this is the last tryout weekend and guys have to make an impression.”
There are still 29 players in camp, and the roster must be pared to 23 by the first regular-season game on Sept. 25.
Constantine said the coaching staff was able to “touch on 75 percent of what we want to put in place” prior to last weekend’s classic.
“It doesn’t mean that 75 percent is being executed the way we need to once we get repetitions, but we at least had talked about 75 percent of the details of how we wanted to play,” Constantine said. “We’re up around 95 percent now. So now we just continue to try to get repetitions of we want to do well when those situations arise.”
Yan Khomenko led the Silvertips offense last weekend. He scored three goals and had two assists. Tristen Pfeifer added three assists in Everett’s victory over Portland on Sunday.
Prince George (0-2) was scheduled to play Portland (2-1) Wednesday night in Kennewick. The Cougars have five players who have scored once during the preseason.
Portland (2-1), which fell 4-3 to Everett on Sunday, is led offensively by Alex Overhardt (three goals) and Dominic Turgeon (two goals).
Notes
The Silvertips announced Wednesday that they have signed 17-year-old forward Devon Skoleski to a Western Hockey League standard player agreement. Skoleski scored 25 goals and had 31 assists in 44 games last season for the Eastman Selects of the Manitoba Midget Hockey League. Skoleski was a free-agent invite to camp. … Everett also announced that it has released defenseman Tyler Fraser and left wing Nik Malencia. … Montana Onyebuchi, Everett’s third-round pick in this year’s WHL Bantam Draft has been assigned to the Eastman Selects for his 15-year-old season.
Follow Silvertips writer Jesse Geleynse on Twitter @jessegeleynse.
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