EVERETT – The Everett Silvertips see the Portland Winter Hawks and Seattle Thunderbirds a lot the next five days, playing each team twice.

That means the Tips will have to deal with those two teams’ new strategy for slowing down Everett’s offense: Don’t give Everett any power plays.

“We haven’t gone on the power play quite as much recently,” Everett coach Kevin Constantine acknowledged Monday. “I don’t know if that’s because of refereeing – typically during the season there are less and less calls. So I don’t know if it’s officiating or if teams are making adjustments because they feel our power play is one of our strengths.”

Everett has one of the most lethal power plays in the WHL. The Tips rank fourth in the league in power-play efficiency, converting 19.7 percent of their power plays into goals. Seventy-one of their 173 goals scored this season have come with the advantage.

Everett has played both Portland and Seattle three times since Feb. 8. In those games Everett had just 21 power plays, less than four per game, and scored just three power-play goals. As a result, the Tips notched just 11 goals in those six games and won just two.

Portland coach Mike Williamson, whose team leads the league in penalty minutes, cited his team’s improved discipline as a factor following the Winter Hawks’ 3-2 shootout victory in Everett on Saturday.

The numbers support the strategy. Everett has 173 goals for and 131 goals against, a healthy plus-42 differential. However, Everett is strong on both the power play and the penalty kill and is also 7-3 in shootouts. When those goals are factored out, Everett has 82 goals for and 78 goals against when at even strength, a much more modest differential. Portland and Seattle have attempted to exploit that.

“I think the last five games we’ve played pretty consistently defensively with pretty good goaltending and decent penalty killing,” Constantine said. “I think our offense has been just OK, probably our defense has been better than our offense. Part of that relates to not going on the power play that much, so it’s a factor. No team in this league is going to be as good by just playing five-on-five as they’d be adding a power-play goal or two during a game.”

But while Portland and Seattle have made a point of being more disciplined, Constantine also said part of the decrease in power plays is the Tips’ own doing.

“Part of it is maybe a little bit of our issue of not going hard to the areas where you can draw some penalties,” Constantine said. “There’s some good fundamentals you follow to put yourself into scoring position. The more you put yourself into scoring position, the more the other team has to defend that. The more the other team has to defend that, the more likely you’ll have penalties called. I think a bit of it is related to the things we were doing wrong.”

Everett will need to correct that to counter the Winter Hawks and T-birds this week.

Iron man: One would think that with eight games in 10 days, No. 1 goaltender Leland Irving would receive a day off and backup Matt Esposito would get a start.

Maybe not.

Constantine voiced the desire to give Irving a rest sometime during this stretch. But he also indicated he had faith that Irving, who’s started 58 of Everett’s 61 games, has the ability to hold up under the rigors if called upon.

“The games we’ve played recently he hasn’t had to face 40-50 shots or 30 scoring chances, so he hasn’t been overly worked in the games,” Constantine explained. “I think both goalies are really ready. I know Espo is really anxious to get a start, he knows this is an opportunity during this stretch. Then at the same time I think Leland’s in such good shape physically and hasn’t been overworked in these games that I think he’s ready to continue playing. I think they’re both in good shape to play right now.”

Scouting report: Everett completes its playoff-like stretch against Portland – five meetings in 18 days – with back-to-back games tonight in Portland and Wednesday in Everett. The Tips (35-21-2-3) lead the season series 6-1-0-2, but the Winter Hawks (25-29-3-4) won two of the previous three. Each of the past three games was decided in a shootout.

Portland has been a different team since the return of star center Brandon Dubinsky. While the 19-year-old Dubinsky was shelved with a knee injury, Portland went 2-14-2-0. But since Dubinsky’s return the Winter Hawks are 3-0-0-2 and are back in contention for third place in the U.S. Division.

Dubinsky (18 goals, 39 assists) and 19-year-old right wing Jannik Hansen (21 goals, 36 assists) are tied for the team lead in points with 57. Sixteen-year-old Kurtis Mucha (7-8-1-2, 3.42 goals against average, .869 save percentage) has stabilized the goaltending position.

For Everett, left wings John Lammers and Karel Hromas, who both left Sunday’s 3-0 victory at Tri-City in the third period, appear to have escaped without any major damage. However, Constantine said both could miss a game or two. Center Peter Mueller and right wing Brady Calla, who were held out Sunday because of illness, both practiced Monday.

Around the WHL: Everett remained in seventh place in this week’s Western Major Junior Hockey Writers Association poll. Medicine Hat bounced back into the top spot, earning 14 of the 15 first-place votes. Calgary moved up one spot to second, Vancouver dropped two places to third. … Kelowna forward Justin Keller was named the WHL Player of the Week for Feb. 20-26. Keller had seven goals and two assists in four games as Kelowna went 4-0. He became the first player this season to win the award a second time.