Silvertips keep Royals' playoff hopes in limbo
The Victoria Royals, in desperate need of points to claim a spot in the Western Hockey League playoffs, were looking to duplicate their feat from Friday with another strong third period.
However, the Everett Silvertips were not about to let the Royals come back on Saturday from a
1-0 second-period deficit. The Silvertips rode the goaltending of Kent Simpson and defensive play en route to a 3-0 victory over the Royals before 7,963 fans at the Comcast Arena in Everett.
On Friday in Kelowna, the Royals trailed the Rockets 1-0 after two periods but then responded with three unanswered goals for a 3-1 win.
With the victory, the Silvertips vault over the Royals into seventh place with 51 points, one more than the eighth-place Royals. The top eight teams in the Western Conference advance to the playoffs. The Seattle Thunderbirds and the Prince George Cougars are tied for ninth place, four points behind Victoria.
Cody Fowlie opened the scoring for Everett early in the first period, and the second was scoreless. At 1:23 of the third period, with the Royals on the power play, Joshua Winquist scored shorthanded to deflate the Royals. That extended Winquist's point streak to seven games.
"Everett has a solid team, and we have struggled to score goals against them, especially in Everett,'' said Royals coach and GM Marc Habscheid. "In our last two games here, we have scored only two goals and you are not going to win a lot of games doing that.''
Habscheid said the game's turning point came early in the third period with that shorthanded goal.
"We were on the power play, pressing for the tying goal, and then they made it 2-0,'' said Habscheid. "That shorthanded goal put us on our heels and we had to take more chances by opening it up to get those two back.''
Everett swept the season-series against Victoria 4-0.
The Royals conclude the road portion of their regular season this afternoon (5 p.m.) in Vancouver against the Giants.
Victoria finishes the regular season with a two-game series at home on Wednesday and Friday against the Portland Winterhawks. Game time both nights at the Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre is 7 p.m.
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Royals pick up a valuable point with gritty OT loss in Vancouver
Royals pick up a valuable point with gritty OT loss in Vancouver
BY CLEVE DHEENSAW, TIMESCOLONIST.COM MARCH 11, 2012 10:02 PM
VANCOUVER — Heading into the final week of the Western Hockey League regular season, the playoff picture in the Western Conference is about as clear as an abstract expressionist painting.
Read into it what you will.
After the ice spray had settled Sunday, the Victoria Royals retained the eighth and final playoff position, three points ahead of the ninth-place Seattle Thunderbirds but with the knowledge Seattle retains two games in hand and would win all tiebreakers.
The seventh-place Everett Silvertips stayed a point ahead of Victoria, with a game in hand, following games Sunday in which the Royals needed a last-gasp goal to salvage a point in a 5-4 overtime loss to the Giants in Vancouver while the Thunderbirds edged the Silvertips 3-2 in overtime.
The 10th-place Prince George Cougars blew a 3-1 lead against the Americans in losing 5-3 at Tri City. The Cougars trail Victoria by five points and are now largely an irrelevancy, despite holding a game in hand.
The Royals close out the regular season Wednesday and Friday at home inside Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre against the powerhouse Portland Winterhawks (48-17-4).
“I’m proud of the guys,” said Victoria GM and head coach Marc Habscheid, after defenceman Hayden Rintoul’s 17th goal of the season, with 22 seconds remaining, sent Sunday’s game at Vancouver to extra time.
Jordan Martinook won it for the Giants at 2:50 of overtime but even a single digit added in the standings looms large at this late juncture and situation in the season for Victoria.
“That was a huge point for us, especially in a place that has been a haunted house for us,” said Habscheid, referring to the fact Victoria had lost all four previous games this season at the PNE Pacific Coliseum.
“There was less than 30 seconds left and nobody quit. Everybody supported one another.”
Rintoul, the graduating 20-year-old captain of the Royals, will not go softly from junior and finished with a goal and assist Sunday.
Brandon Magee, whose motor doesn’t come with an off-switch, scored twice for Victoria (22-41-7) while Logan Nelson, the 108th-ranked North American skater for the 2012 NHL draft, scored the other Royals goal.
Martinook and Marek Tvrdon led the Giants (39-26-5) with two goals each.
Rookie Jared Rathjen made 34 saves in goal for the Royals while WHL veteran Adam Morrison, a 2009 third-round draft pick of the Philadelphia Flyers, made 24 for Vancouver.