Silvertips defenseman Pfeifer took an unusual route to the WHL

EVERETT — Tristen Pfeifer is an archetype.

The Everett Silvertips defenseman is the living embodiment of junior-hockey hope. It doesn’t matter in which league or at what age level a youth player plies his trade, or how remote a location he may find himself. If a player can play, he can be found.

Pfeifer took a less-traveled path to the WHL, emerging from the Arizona desert to become an important cog in Everett’s defense. And in less than a year, the rookie blueliner has gone from being a complete unknown to being a legitimate professional prospect.

“There’s the concept of a late bloomer in any sport, certainly in hockey,” Everett coach Kevin Constantine said. “He’s kind of a classic case of someone who a year ago wasn’t on anyone’s radar. Some guys just come around in the game later than others.”

Pfeifer, an 18-year-old rookie, has been a steady defensive presence for Everett this season. The 6-foot-4, 180-pounder is a no-nonsense stay-at-home defender who’s spent most of the season on the Tips’ third defensive pairing. But he’s also stepped up admirably when called upon to fill a larger role when other defensemen were unavailable, and he scored his first career WHL goal during the Tips’ 7-1 home victory over Vancouver last Friday.

“I feel it’s gone well,” Pfeifer said of his season. “It’s a big difference for me coming from (Phoenix), having to adapt. But I feel I’ve done a pretty good job, and the guys and the coaching staff have been really good about helping me out, so it’s gone well.”

Pfeifer’s story is far different from the typical WHLer. Everett unearthed Pfeifer in the hockey hotbed of Phoenix.

Wait, what?

Arizona, surprisingly, has a flourishing youth hockey community, which seems odd for an area that sees temperatures in the 80s even during the harshest stretches of winter. It’s a far cry from the freezing western Canadian chills most WHL players grow up experiencing.

But even so, the few Arizona natives who have played in the WHL, such as former Everett winger JT Barnett, were identified early and plucked from the desert at 15 or 16. In contrast, Pfeifer’s 18th birthday was quickly approaching last March when the Silvertips found him.

Pfeifer, who began playing at age six after seeing a Phoenix Coyotes NHL game, was playing in anonymity for the Phoenix Jr. Coyotes U-18 team when Everett general manager Garry Davidson was contacted by Mike DeAngelis, who manages the Jr. Coyotes elite teams. DeAngelis was touting a hybrid forward/defenseman from his U-18 team, so Davidson decided to take a look.

Davidson traveled to the Rocky Mountain Regionals, a tournament that took place in Phoenix last March. Usually he would have spent all his time at the tournament scouting the U-14 teams for the bantam draft or the U-16 teams for overlooked young prospects. The U-18 teams would have been ignored. But Davidson made a point of watching the U-18 Jr. Coyotes twice and came away intrigued by what he saw from Pfeifer.

“I watched him, he played a little bit of forward and a little bit of defense,” Davidson recalled. “I thought there was something there. His hands and feet were good, he showed good decision making, and I like that he’s 6-foot-4 and has reach. I’m a big fan of reach, I think it compensates for a lot of things.

“We sat on it for a few weeks, then we thought if we’re really trying to recruit this kid to come to camp, let’s take the next step and put him on our protected list, which was an indication to him that we were genuinely interested in him as a player.”

Pfeifer was a complete mystery when he arrived at training camp last August — even Everett’s scouts knew nothing about him. He had a tough task making the team, as it’s rare for 18-year-old rookies to make WHL teams unless they have some hype behind them.

But to the surprise of all, including himself, Pfeifer made the cut.

“It was a higher level team than I ever tried out for,” said Pfeifer, who had higher hopes for his tryout with the British Columbia Hockey League’s Salmon Arm Silverbacks immediately following Everett’s training camp. “All I could do was do my best and see what happened. I went out there and felt I played pretty confident. When they asked me to sign I was excited.

“I was not thinking I was going to make the team, but I really did want to make it,” Pfeifer added. “I tried my hardest, but I was very surprised when I did.”

Because of where he came from, Pfeifer was raw when the coaching staff first got its hands on him. Therefore, much of this season has been a learning process about the details of the game.

“He had more ground to make up than other people when he got here,” Constantine said. “That’s where he’s shown a lot of improvement. If you give him situational questions about the game now compared to four months ago, he’s got the answers now and has incorporated them into his game.”

How well has he incorporated? So well he was recently listed by the NHL Central Scouting Service as a prospect for this year’s NHL draft, an astounding feat for someone who wasn’t even a WHL prospect this time last year.

“I think he definitely could be a pro because it’s unusual to find a guy with that kind of range — he has long arms and a long stick, so he covers a lot of the ice,” Constantine said. “When you have a guy with that kind of range who’s quick with his feet and doesn’t mind the physical part of the game, it’s hard to find someone who combines those three things.”

Pfeifer’s presence on the team also has the ancillary benefit of giving the Tips an ally in a key recruiting battle. Auston Matthews, a 2012 Everett bantam draft pick who is currently playing for the U.S. National Team Development Program’s U-18 team, is considered the early frontrunner to be picked first overall in the 2016 NHL draft. He’s stated that he’s 50-50 on whether to play for Everett or for an NCAA school next season. Matthews also happens to be from Phoenix, and he’s friends with Pfeifer.

“He’s a good buddy of mine,” Pfeifer said of Matthews. “I talk to him once in a while and he has a big decision in front of him. He’s a phenomenal player, so we’ll see what happens with that.”

But regardless of whether the Tips land Matthews, it seems they’ve already performed an Arizona coup by discovering Pfeifer.

Check out Nick Patterson’s Silvertips blog at http://www.heraldnet.com/silvertipsblog, and follow him on Twitter at @NickHPatterson.