Game 53 - TC Americans

[Tipped Off]

Tips Press Release:
The Everett Silvertips will face off against three different US Division rivals this week, with all three games in the friendly confines of the Everett Events Center. Heading into this week, the Silvertips have a healthy 21 point lead for first place in the US Division and have the best overall record in the WHL with a 42- 8-0-2 (86 points) record. On Wednesday night, February 7, the Silvertips renew their rivalry with the Tri- City Americans at the EEC at 7:05 p.m. Friday night, February 9 the Spokane Chiefs will battle the Silvertips at the Everett Events Center. Game time is set for 7:35 p.m. The Silvertips will finish off the weekend on Saturday, February 10 to face off against the Seattle Thunderbirds at the EEC.

The Silvertips are led in scoring by Zach Hamill (22 goals, 50 assists) with 72 points. Peter Mueller (14 goals, 49 assists) is 2nd on the hockey club in scoring with 63 points. Kyle Beach (25 goals, 26 assists) is 3rd on the team in scoring with 51 points. Hamill currently leads the Silvertips in assists (50) while Moises Gutierrez (32 goals, 15 assists) leads the team in goals scored (32) and power play goals (24). Silvertips forward Kyle Beach leads the hockey club in +/- with a +21. In goal, Leland Irving has posted 26 wins, 1.71 GAA, 93.5% SP and 7 Shutouts. David Reekie is currently 16-3 with the Silvertips and has posted a 1.46 GAA, 93.5% SP and 3 shutouts with Everett this season.

SILVERTIPS BREAK WIN AND POINTS RECORD
Last week the Silvertips broke franchise records in wins and points earned in a single season. Everett currently has 42 wins and 86 points in 52 games, which is a franchise record. The old record was set by the 2005-2006 Silvertips, who finished with 40 wins and 85 points in 72 games.

VERSUS THE TRI-CITY AMERICANS

Wednesday night will be the sixth of eight meetings between the two US Division rivals. The Silvertips are 3-1-0-1 against the Americans this season and 3-0 against the Ams’ at the Everett Events Center. The Silvertips are 18-12-2 (OT)-1(SOL)-3 (Ties) all time against the Americans in franchise history. Everett is 11-4-0-0-3 (Ties) all time against Tri-City at the Everett Events Center.

Future Meetings: February 7: @ Everett, March 10: @ Tri-City, March 16: @ Tri-City.

[Tipped Off]

Well, we know a few players who WON'T be playing....

02/05/07 Tri-City $1,000 fine for actions of Club vs Everett on February 2.
02/05/07 Chris Inglis Tri-City Three games for actions vs Everett on February 2.
02/03/07 Travis Gorman Tri-City Two games for actions vs Everett on February 2.
02/03/07 Don Nachbaur Tri-City Two games for actions of players vs Everett on February 2.

In addition, we know Graham Potuer will still be out. Sonne will be back from his 2 game suspension.

[Tipped Off]

No blood bath this time


By John Sleeper
Herald writer






The Bright family of Everett doesn't usually come to Silvertips games during the week because of work.

Wednesday night, they made an exception.

"It's getting pretty nasty with the Tri-City Americans," Sarah Bright said before the game. "That's real hockey. The closest thing to it around here is high school wrestling, and that just doesn't do it for me."

While the Brights profess to love the game, they count the spontaneous breakout of the Marquis of Queensbury rules as one of its hooks. In their previous two games, the Silvertips and Americans presented fans an overload of the manly art of self-defense, much to the delight of fans. Ill will between the two teams has flowed as freely as the resulting abundant corpuscles spilled on the reddening ice.

In hockey, retaliation is a universal directive, if not religious commandment.

Thus, the anticipation before the third game in a week between the teams was almost palpable.

Both teams had gotten their shots in. On Jan. 31 in the Everett Events Center, Silvertips center and mischief-maker Kyle Beach sent Americans leading scorer Colton Yellow Horn woozily into the locker room after a blind-side hit into the boards.

In the same game, Tips wing Brennan Sonne was called for a major kneeing penalty and suspended for two games.

Reaction was turbulent. Tri-City coach Don Nachbaur said a response would be forthcoming. In a release on the American's Web site, Beach was identified as a "marked man."

Tri-City took some measure of revenge Saturday night on home ice. Americans forwards Chris Inglis and Travis Gorman instigated fights with three seconds left in the game. They, along with Nachbaur, were suspended.

Wednesday night, many Everett fans hoped for something similarly physical, favoring the home side.

"I hope it's on as soon as they drop the puck," Joel Bright said. "For (the Americans) to target our guys is just wrong."

To many spectators, such incidents are as close as it gets to nirvana.

"It could go two ways," Silvertips fan Tom O'Toole said. "The refs could call the game so tight that they'll send the players to the (penalty) box just for breathing on each other. Or it could be a bloodbath.

"Personally, I kinda hope it's the latter."

Certainly, expectation was in the air. Among the visitors in the pressbox was Kevin Muench, the WHL's director of officiating. Americans general manager Bob Tory, acting coach in Nachbaur's place, was heard before the game hoping for extra security around his bench and complaining about a story in The Herald that supposedly would fan the pugilistic flames on the ice and in the stands.

Not only that, but Americans radio play-by-play announcer Craig West sent an e-mail to Silvertips officials requesting extra security for the visiting radio booth for Wednesday and for all remaining games the Americans play at the Everett Events Center.

West wrote that Silvertips fans sitting on the level directly under his radio booth "directed comments" at him. West said they were the same fans who "threw beverages at us and grabbed my equipment (valued by Clear Channel at $9,000) and tried to yank it over the counter."

Silvertips director of business operations Zoran Rajcic said the team supplied an extra security officer around the media area in the EEC's upper level.

For all the pregame hoopla, though, players generally behaved themselves. Five minutes into the final period, Boogaard and Beach had a minor dust-up. Beach received five minutes for fighting. Boogaard received two minutes for instigating, five for fighting and 10 for misconduct.

As he left the ice for the locker room, Boogaard bade adieu to the booing crowd with a gentlemanly wave.

Three minutes later, the Tips' Dane Crowley exchanged small talk and right hands with Joel Broda. Both were sent off for fighting. In the closing minutes, others engaged in minor pushing and shoving, nothing you wouldn't see at a Mother-Daughter Tea.

The Brights and others must have felt royally ripped off.

[Tipped Off]

Tips tame Americans
Gutierrez scores twice as Everett routs Tri-City 5-0

By Nick Patterson
Herald Writer

EVERETT - This time the fireworks weren't a result of the ill will between the Everett Silvertips and Tri-City Americans.

Instead, the fireworks came courtesy of the Everett offense.

In the final game of an epic trilogy, Everett made its point on the scoreboard, defeating Tri-City 5-0 Wednesday night at the Everett Events Center.

Moises Gutierrez had two goals and two assists and Peter Mueller added a goal and three assists for Everett (43-8-0-2), which won the rubber game of what's been a heated stretch of three games in eight days against the Americans.

"I think the bad blood was a little overrated from the last game," Gutierrez said. "It's not a big secret that we're not a fighting team. Tonight we just wanted to come out and outplay them on the ice, not worry about fighting."

Jonathan Harty and Ondrej Fiala also scored for Everett, and Leland Irving made 30 saves in goal for his eighth shutout of the season as the Tips stretched their lead atop the U.S. Division to 23 points over the second-place Americans.

Carey Price, who shut out the Tips 2-0 in Kennwick last Friday, finished with 19 saves for Tri-City (32-19-0-1).

There was significant buildup to Wednesday's game. Last week's contests were characterized by bad blood, as Everett was guilty of two illegal hits in the first and Tri-City instigated a brawl at the end of the second. The Americans were without two players, as well as head coach Don Nachbaur, because of suspensions handed down from that second game.

In contrast to those games, the teams were on their best behavior Wednesday - with the exception of a moment in the third period when Tri-City enforcer Aaron Boogaard instigated a fight with Everett's Kyle Beach - public enemy number one in the Americans' eyes.

The toned-down nature worked to Everett's advantage as the Tips were able to play their game unimpeded. Everett was particularly strong in transition, scoring four of its five goals as a result of two-on-one breaks.

"We had some turnovers and Everett's transition was very good," said Tri-City general manager Bob Tory, filling in for Nachbaur behind the bench. "I thought our guys worked hard, played fairly disciplined and had some scoring chances - Irving was very good. But when we turned the puck over Everett's transition game was as good as I've seen it."

Meanwhile, Irving turned in a stellar performance in Everett's goal. He was particularly strong in the first period, holding the Americans at bay on several occasions with the outcome still in the balance.

"He made some real difficult scoring situations look pretty easy, only because he was on top of his game," Everett coach Kevin Constantine said of Irving. "I thought Tri-City created quite a few scoring chances. Leland was just really good."

With Irving holding the fort in Everett's end, the Tips set the script for the night with their first goal 16 minutes, 41 seconds into the game. The Tips created a two-on-one while breaking out of their own zone, Mueller skating the puck into the Americans' zone on the right. Mueller took the shot himself, sliding the puck along the ice into the far corner to give Everett a 1-0 lead.

That same situation came back to haunt Tri-City all night. In a near instant replay 3:46 into the second period, Brennan Sonne took the puck two-on-one into the zone on the right. But Sonne decided to give it up to Harty, who jumped into the play from his defensive position, and Harty redirected the puck into the far corner to make it 2-0.

Two-on-ones also led to Everett's third and fifth goals, both scored by Gutierrez. The first came short-handed at 14:18 of the second period. An errant pass by Price set up a two-on-one that was initially closed down, only for Gutierrez to find the loose puck and fire a shot into the top corner of the net. The second goal came at 15:10 of the third, Gutierrez following the pattern by taking the puck into the zone on the right, then blasting a shot that beat Price high to the near post.

"They like to pinch their D a lot," Gutierrez explained. "A soft chip off the board and we're gone on two-on-ones all night. We utilize that a lot and exposed their weakness."

Slap shots: With defenseman Graham Potuer still recovering from wrist surgery, and with fellow defenseman Mike Alexander feeling lingering effects from the concussion he suffered two weeks ago, Everett called up 1991-born defenseman Jeff Regier for his WHL debut. Regier, Everett's second-round pick in the 2006 bantam draft, picked up an assist for his first WHL point. ... In the stands was Regier's teammate from the British Columbia Major Midget League's Fraser Valley Bruins, Kellan Tochkin. Tochkin, Everett's first-round pick in 2006, is leading the BCMML in scoring with 52 points in 29 games. ... Also out for Everett was center Zack Dailey, still recovering from a hit taken Saturday against Chilliwack. But right wing Dan Gendur, who was questionable because of the flu, did play. ... Because of injuries to defensemen Matt Swaby (ribs), Jarrett Toll (jaw) and Eric Mestery (shoulder), as well as the suspensions of left wing Chris Inglis and right wing Travis Gorman, Tri-City dressed just 17 skaters.

Silvertips 5, Americans 0

Tri-City 0 0 0 - 0

Everett 1 2 2 - 5

First Period-1, Everett, Mueller 15 (Gutierrez, Fransoo), 16:41. Penalties-Teslyuk, Tri-City (checking from behind), 7:57; Smyke, Everett (hold stick), 13:02; Boogaard, Tri-City (roughing), 16:57; Harty, Everett (roughing), 16:57; Fransoo, Everett (tripping), 19:27; Kaye, Tri-City (boarding), 19:32.

Second Period-2, Everett, Harty 4 (Sonne, Gutierrez), 3:46. 3, Everett, Gutierrez 33 (Mueller), 14:18 (sh). Penalties-Tri-City bench (too many men, served by Vey), 6:14; Reddick, Tri-City (tripping), 7:17; Regier, Everett (boarding), 10:13; Crowley, Everett (boarding), 13:17; Valach, Tri-City (diving), 15:38; Hamill, Everett (hooking), 15:38.

Third Period-4, Everett, Gutierrez 34 (Mueller, Fiala), 0:39. 5, Everett, Fiala 9 (Regier, Mueller), 15:10.

Penalties-Boogaard, Tri-City (instigating-fighting-10-minute misconduct), 4:51; Beach, Everett (fighting), 4:51; Broda, Tri-City (fighting), 8:03; Crowley, Everett (roughing-fighting), 8:03; Valach, Tri-City (tripping), 13:07; Schmidt, Tri-City (unsportsmanlike conduct), 13:07; Hamill, Everett (unsportsmanlike conduct), 13:07; Procyshen, Tri-City (high sticking), 16:20; Procyshen, Tri-City (elbowing), 19:24.

Shots on goal-Tri-City 13-7-10-30. Everett 8-11-5-24. Power-play opportunities-Tri-City 0 of 5. Everett 0 of 8.

Goalies-Tri-City, Price 19-11-0-0 (24 shots, 19 saves). Everett, Irving 27-5-0-2 (30 shots, 30 saves).

A-5,689.