I had a chance to chat with Patrick Bajkov by phone Friday night following Everett’s 3-1 win at Prince Albert. Bajkov earned first star honors Friday with a power-play insurance goal in the second period that pushed Everett’s lead to 3-0.
It was Bajkov’s second goal in three games after the Tips’ leading scorer had gone the previous seven without a goal. He now has 23 goals and 40 assists on the year for a 1.11 point per game average.
“I just tried to focus on what I can control by showing up and working every night and if I’m not getting the bounces I can’t do much about it,” he said when asked about the goal drought. “Just gotta keep shooting and maybe shoot a little bit more and see where that goes.”
That Bajkov’s goal came on the man advantage was also an encouraging sign for the Tips who were 2-for-4 on power plays after converting just two of their previous 46 chances.
“That was a little bit of emphasis over the last month trying to get our power play back to where it was, or at least better than it has been,” Bajkov said. “It was good to get those tonight and hopefully we can bring that confidence into the future.”
There seemed to be a sense among the team that this six-game road trip would help “right the ship” so to speak following Everett’s seven-game winless stretch that saw it briefly cede the U.S. Division lead to Seattle. Much of that could be attributed to a brutal schedule that included seven games in nine nights plus the absence of Noah Juuslen and Lucas Skrumeda.
Both Juulsen and Skrumeda returned for the road trip and Juulsen has six points in the five games so far. The Tips also have a pretty good history against teams from the Eastern Conference and are now 9-2 against those teams with tonight’s game at Swift Current the only one remaining. Oh, and the Tips are now three points up on Seattle with a game in hand following the Thunderbirds’ 4-2 loss at Tri-City Friday.
“I think this trip has helped us as a group,” Bajkov said. “We’ve become even closer and we like the hockey we’ve been playing on this trip as well. We were definitely excited to come on the trip and play some hockey out here and out this way.”
The Silvertips have one more game on their East swing as they take on the Swift Current Broncos tonight. The live blog is below. Feel free to follow along and join in:
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