EVERETT — Better performance, same result for the Everett Silvertips.
Everett’s losing skid reached eight games as the Tips fell 3-1 to the Seattle Thunderbirds on Friday night at Comcast Arena.
Everett played a better game than it did in its previous outing, a 9-1 home drubbing at the hands of Spokane on Wednesday. However, it wasn’t enough to end the Tips’ losing streak, which is now the longest in franchise history.
“I thought we played a fairly consistent game,” Everett coach John Becanic said. “It wasn’t our best game dynamically — we weren’t very dynamic tonight. But that tends to happen when you’re fighting yourself a bit.”
Greg Scott scored twice to lead Seattle (22-26-1-3), which pulled within one point of Everett for sixth place in the Western Conference. Jonathan Parker also scored and Jacob DeSerres made 27 saves in goal for the Thunderbirds.
Shane Harper scored the lone goal for Everett (21-23-6-1). Kent Simpson stopped 27 shots in net for the Tips.
Everett has had every part of its game go AWOL at some point during this skid, and Friday night it was the offense that went missing. Other than Harper’s goal, which came on a rebound midway through the second period, the Tips didn’t generate much until the final seven minutes. And when Everett did finally put some pressure on the Seattle goal, DeSerres proved up to the challenge.
Everett has scored just seven goals in its past six games.
“When you’re going through what we’re going through, your offense is the first thing to tighten up,” Becanic said. “You’re trying to not give up as many goals and you lose a little of your offensive creativity.
“It’s easy to try and ignore a streak, but it’s still in the back of your head,” Becanic added. “So I think you tend to play a little more defensive, and the result was we didn’t do much offensively.”
Seattle didn’t do a lot offensively itself, but found the net at critical times. None was more critical than at 15 minutes, 3 seconds of the third period, when Scott scored a short-handed goal that made it 3-1. Everett seemed to be clawing itself back into the game at that point, but the short-hander blunted any momentum.
“We wanted to go short shifts, fast paced, high percentage and kind of make it a real grind to defend against,” Seattle coach Rob Sumner said. “I thought we held the puck a lot and were hard to play against because of that.”
Everett will try to end its skid again tonight against Portland, and Becanic said there was no magic formula for snapping out of it.
“Just keep working,” Becanic said. “There’s no tricks to it. We’ve played half the games during this streak pretty good, and half we haven’t (played well). We’ve just been on the short end of the stick in the ones we’ve played well in and we’ll go back to work tomorrow. We just have to continue to play hard hockey, which I thought we played hard.”
Seattle opened the scoring 8:55 into the game. Scott drove the net with the puck from the left and though the puck rolled off his stick, it somehow snuck its way under Simpson to make it 1-0.
The T-birds doubled their lead at 15:46. Seattle kept Everett pinned in its own zone long enough for Scott to send a blind pass out front, where Parker snapped it into the top corner to make it 2-0.
Everett pulled back within one 7:27 into the second period when DeSerres spilled a rebound, with Harper putting it over the downed goaltender to make it 2-1.
But the T-birds restored their two-goal lead at 15:03 while short-handed. Prab Rai skated his way around three Everett players before making a backdoor feed to Scott for a tip-in.
Slap shots: Everett had center Paul Van de Velde back in the lineup. Vande de Velde missed the previous four games with a concussion. … Tips defenseman Chris de la Lande, who was expected back from his groin strain, did not play. … Everett made an adjustment to its top line as Dan Iwanski joined Zack Dailey and Shane Harper, replacing Dale Hunt. … Seattle was missing a pair of veteran forwards as right wing David Richard (hand) and center Lindsay Nielsen (ankle) were both out injured.
Thunderbirds 3, Silvertips 1
Seattle210—3
Everett010—1
@5. NHL box :First Period—1, Seattle, Scott 18 (Parker, Haber), 8:55. 2, Seattle, Parker 10 (Fleming, Hickey), 15:46. Penalties—none.
Second Period—3, Everett, Harper 22 (Iwanski, Dailey), 7:27. 4, Seattle, Scott 19 (Rai), 15:03 (sh). Penalties—Rai, Seattle (interference), 2:42; Iwanski, Everett (tripping), 3:16; Ellington, Everett (roughing), 10:31; Warg, Seattle (slashing), 14:19; Hunt, Everett (hooking), 16:40.
Third Period—No goals. Penalties—Bauer, Everett (holding), 6:16; Acolatse, Seattle (slashing), 11:24.
Shots on goal—Seattle 9-14-7—30. Everett 6-8-14—28. Power-play opportunities—Seattle 0 of 4. Everett 0 of 3.
Goalies—Seattle, DeSerres 11-16-0-0 (28 shots, 27 saves). Everett, Simpson 8-6-3-1 (30 shots, 27 saves).
A—7,787.
Nick Patterson’s Silvertips blog: http://www.heraldnet.com/silvertipsblog
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