EVERETT — Eetu Tuulola had to wait more than a month to make his regular-season home debut.
The Finn made it a memorable evening by scoring two goals as the Everett Silvertips defeated the Tri-City Americans 4-2 before 2,988 fans in a rare Thursday night contest at Xfinity Arena.
“It feels awesome,” said Tuulola, who missed nearly three weeks after injuring his shoulder Oct. 2 in a game at Tri-City. “I got great support from my teammates and the fans, and it’s always great to play in (front of) a home crowd. I always get a little extra boost and you definitely want to win the game in front of the home crowd.”
The Silvertips (10-2-2-0, 22 points) continued their torrid start to the season by improving to 2-1-1 against Tri-City (8-6-1-0, 17 points). Everett leads the U.S. Division while the Americans remained in second place.
The Tips entered the game with four days off after concluding a grueling two-week stretch in which they played six of seven on the road. The Americans, meanwhile, were playing their fifth road game in the past seven days.
“Generally when you are playing more than the other team you have more rhythm to start the game, (but) the other team might have more energy over the course of the game,” Everett head coach Kevin Constantine said. “I thought we looked reasonable (in our) energy, but not real crisp with our puck movement in the first period either. It was good we got our first goal and then we got our legs under a little bit in the first, and you get your rhythm a little bit.”
Tuulola’s first goal snapped a 1-1 tie in the second period and his second goal came at 3:46 in the third on a cross-crease pass from Connor Dewar for a tap-in to push the lead to 4-1.
“The ‘wow’ factor is (Tuulola’s) shot,” Constantine said. “He’s got a helluva shot, but he’s got good puck skills on top of that too, and the goals he got tonight, some were just going to the net. It was nice to see him do that.”
The Amercians scored a power play goal at 15:06 when Nolan Yaremko tipped in a shot from Juuso Valimaki to make it 4-2. Everett goaltender Carter Hart had several key saves in the Americans’ final flurry and finished with 21 stops.
Everett took control with a pair of goals in the second to snap a 1-1 tie after the opening stanza.
The Tips used a two-on-none situation when Tuulola knocked in a feed from Devon Skoleski at 7:21 in the second for a 2-1 lead. Riley Sutter then tallied his team-leading seventh goal of the season when he skated around from the left circle and fired a wrister from the high slot while Sean Richards screened Tri-City goalie Beck Warm for a 3-1 advantage at 15:01.
“The screen was just as important,” Constantine said. “Riley has a great shot, one of the better shots on the team, but you need traffic in today’s game and goalies are too good, so the job Sean Richards did to screen the goalie was huge on that goal also.”
Everett took a 1-0 lead early in the opening period. Spencer Gerth scored his first career WHL goal when he potted a rebound from the slot at 2:32.
“I think a good start was something we talked about and it was huge,” Gerth said. “We talked about also coming off a good road swing there, a couple weeks on the road, and now we’ve got a good homestand here, so I think it was huge to get the first goal at home, get the crowd into it.”
The Americans tied it at 10:53 when Kyle Olson took advantage of a two-on-one situation and found Morgan Geekie at the right post for the tap-in past to make it 1-1.
Notes
The WHL announced Thursday that Everett captain Noah Juulsen will also serve as the captain of Team WHL during next week’s Canada-Russia Series. Both Juulsen and Hart will represent the Silvertips with Team WHL for the second straight year.
Silvertips 4, Americans 2
Tri-City 1 0 1 — 2
Everett 1 2 1 — 4
1st Period—1, Everett, Gerth 1 (Skrumeda, Hein), 2:32. 2, Tri-City, Geekie 5 (Olson, Wotherspoon), 10:53. Penalties—Juulsen Evt (interference), 16:48.
2nd Period—3, Everett, Tuulola 2 (Skoleski, Millar), 7:21. 4, Everett, Sutter 7 (Wylie, Onyebuchi), 15:01. Penalties—Yorke Tc (cross checking), 17:13.
3rd Period—5, Everett, Tuulola 3 (Dewar), 3:46. 6, Tri-City, Yaremko 2 (Olson, Välimäki), 15:06 (PP). Penalties—Geekie Tc (roughing), 7:11; Onyebuchi Evt (roughing), 7:11; Christiansen Evt (interference), 11:10; Bajkov Evt (roughing), 13:37.
Shots on Goal—Tri-City 6-8-9-23. Everett 11-13-4-28.
Power Play Opportunities—Tri-City 1 / 3; Everett 0 / 1.
Goalies—Tri-City, Warm 3-3-0-0 (28 shots-24 saves). Everett, Hart 7-2-1-0 (23 shots-21 saves).
A—2,988
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