SPOKANE – First mission accomplished.
The Everett Silvertips hope it’s just the first of many.
Everett secured its spot in the second round of the WHL playoffs Sunday night with a 4-1 victory over the Spokane Chiefs in Game 6 of their first-round series.
Everett won the best-of-seven series 4-2. But for the top-ranked team in the entire Canadian Hockey League, which plays Prince George in the second round, the first-round victory is just the first step in what it hopes is a long journey to the Memorial Cup.
“It feels good right now, but there’s a lot of work yet ahead of us,” Everett goaltender Leland Irving said. “We’re going to take the time to enjoy this now, but at the same time we’ll be preparing for PG.”
Peter Mueller scored a highlight-reel goal, Kyle Beach scored the tiebreaker, and Irving did the rest as the Tips had to white-knuckle it through two periods before Zack Dailey and Brennan Sonne scored empty-net goals to seal the victory.
“It was nerve wracking,” Mueller said. “But the guys are so calm and we had warriors in the locker room tonight. With the 2-1 lead everyone wanted to be on the ice because it’s a big game at a big, important time.”
Sunday’s game mirrored the rest of the series, in which Spokane gave Everett everything it could handle.
And the Tips didn’t help their own cause in the final two periods. After going ahead 2-1 in the first period, Everett played a ragged second period and had to kill penalties in the third.
But unlike the previous two games in Spokane this series, Everett managed to get a few breaks and bounces. That, combined with Irving at his sharpest with 26 saves, allowed the Tips to survive.
“I thought this was our worst game in here of all three games we played,” Everett coach Kevin Constantine said. “I know the third game when they scored three in a row, it’s hard not to call that our worst game. But if you look at time of possession and all those other factors, I think you’ll find this was our worst.
“I thought Spokane played us very good, as they did all year” Constantine added. “So many times this series could have turned any direction, and it did turn a few times. I thought it was two teams that did exactly what they did during the regular season: battle hard, win most of their home games and play even.”
Drayson Bowman scored for Spokane. Dustin Tokarski continued his admirable play in goal for the Chiefs. The 17-year-old rookie made 25 saves.
“Full credit to their penalty killers for keeping us off the scoreboard in the third period,” Spokane coach Bill Peters said. “We had chances, but Irving was good.
“I definitely think we had more to give,” Peters added. “There were times when we didn’t have all 20 guys on the same page.”
However, Everett is a difficult team to handle under any circumstances when Mueller and Irving, it’s two first-round NHL draft picks, are on their game. Mueller’s goal, which opened the scoring 7 minutes, 32 seconds into the game, was a thing of beauty. After an extended period of Spokane pressure, Mueller picked up a loose puck in his own zone, sped up ice, completely undressed two Spokane defensemen, then put a shot past Tokarski’s glove to give the Tips a 1-0 lead.
After Bowman tipped an Ondrej Roman shot over Irving’s shoulder on the power play, tying it at 9:13, Everett regained the lead with 4.3 seconds remaining in the period on a power-play goal of its own. Jason Fransoo sent the puck goalward, and Beach’s redirect shot was saved by Tokarski. Beach jammed at the rebound, only for the puck to be stopped by a Spokane defender. But Beach was able to force the puck into the net on his third attempt to make the score 2-1.
From there Everett had to hold on for dear life. Irving made some key saves early in the second period as the Tips were overwhelmed – Constantine even took his timeout early in the period to chew out his players.
But Everett was rescued by the benefit of the calls the rest of the period, receiving four power plays to none for the Chiefs. Despite their struggles the Tips had a chance to increase their lead, but on a five-on-three advantage Zach Hamill’s slap shot hit the post.
Irving was at his best again early in the third period, making a big save on Michael Grabner. Moments later Grabner beat Irving with a shot – the puck hit the post.
The Tips took three straight penalties, but Everett’s penalty-kill did a good job limiting Spokane’s chances. The Chiefs pulled Tokarski for an extra attacker with 1:33 remaining, but the Tips scored into the empty net 10 seconds later as Dailey skated it in. Sonne added another empty-net goal with 7.9 seconds remaining to provide the final margin of victory.
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