Please forgive me if I come across like Bill Murray from the movie Groundhog Day.
A year ago I took the occasion of the Seattle Seahawks’ bye week to check in with my former beat, the Everett Silvertips. Before last season began the Tips were not expected to be a factor in the WHL’s U.S. Division, and no one was sure where the goals were going to come from, given the offensive pieces they lost from the previous campaign. However, Everett was still finding ways to win games, and I wanted to know why.
So what was the situation when the Seahawks’ bye came this season and I decided to check in on the Tips again? Well, it’s a team that going into the season wasn’t expected to be a factor in the U.S. Division, that no one was sure where the goals were going to come from, yet was finding ways to win games.
Did someone see Punxsutawney Phil scurrying around somewhere?
I made my way to Xfinity Arena on Wednesday night to see what the Tips had to offer as they played host to the Tri-City Americans, and based on what I witnessed it looks like it’s going to be another season in Everett when goals come at a premium.
This is not news. Last season the Tips scored just 182 goals (2.5 per game), which was the second-fewest in the WHL. Then the Tips lost their top two scorers from that team, forwards Remi Laurencelle and Carson Stadnyk, who aged out of the league. Everett doesn’t have a returning player who scored more than 18 goals or registered more than 48 points last season.
If it feels like you’ve heard this story before, it’s because you have. Nearly identical words could have been written about last year’s team, just the names being changed.
So it wasn’t surprising that I was treated to a low-scoring contest Wednesday. After two periods the score was tied 1-1 despite Everett out-shooting Tri-City 28-11 — far too many of those 28 shots were fired right into the crest on Americans goaltender Beck Warm’s chest. It seemed fitting that the three goals Everett eventually scored consisted of a five-on-three goal from a shot that wasn’t even directed on target, a goal when the player in front whiffed on a shot only for the puck to end up on a teammate’s stick with an open net, and an empty-netter on a shot that came from inside the Tips’ own blue line.
Can someone get me the phone number for Bill Murray’s piano teacher?
And yet the Tips won 3-1. The victory improved Everett’s record to 4-0-1-0, which matched the 2006-07 Scotty Munro Trophy-winning squad for the best start to a season in franchise history. It’s remarkable what an elite goaltender (Carter Hart), a solid defense (led by Noah Juulsen) and hard work can do.
But as we’ve seen in the past, that formula only seems to take a team so far. Everett was able to ride that formula to the divisional lead until the final month of last season, when the Tips were overtaken by the superiorly talented Seattle Thunderbirds. For the second straight year Everett wasn’t able to get past the second round of the playoffs, eliminated by an opponent that had greater offensive firepower at its disposal.
Therefore, if this team wants to be anything more than a bridge to next season, when the roster seems better suited to making a run, Everett needs its offense to develop.
This team needs fourth-year players Patrick Bajkov and Matt Fonteyne to take that next step, where as 19-year-olds they’re the ones who are creating the offense rather than being the beneficiaries of offense created by their teammates. Only by taking that next step can they become the cornerstones of a top line.
This team needs its new European players, Finnish import draft pick Eetu Tuulola and Austrian trade acquisition Dominic Zwerger, to be able to provide the type of offense last season’s imports couldn’t. If they’re able to do everything they’re expected to do, they’ll go a long way toward making up for the departed Laurencelle and Stadnyk.
This team needs at least two others to progress from being depth players to being legitimate offensive contributors. Whether it’s Graham Millar, Connor Dewar, Devon Skoleski or someone else, the Tips need others to emerge as players opposing defenses have to account for so that Bajkov and Fonteyne don’t get smothered by the defensive attention.
The early returns at least show some promise, although the sample size is extremely small and contains a little too much of the dysfunctional Vancouver Giants. Eighteen goals in five games is a decent return, though if the opening-night 7-3 thrashing of Vancouver is thrown out it’s a steady diet of 3-1 and 3-2 scores. Bajkov and Fonteyne each had more than a point per game, while Millar had five goals in five outings.
Everett needs those trends to continue. The U.S. Division could be there for the taking, with no team seemingly above the others as long as Mathew Barzal remains in the NHL instead of back in Kent with the T-birds.
But if the Tips aren’t able to progress offensively from last season, it’s going to feel a lot like deja vu all over again.
For more on the Seattle sports scene, check out Nick Patterson’s Seattle Sidelines blog at www.heraldnet.com/tag/seattle-sidelines, or follow him on Twitter at @NickHPatterson.
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