As the elderly version of Rose in Titanic said, “It’s been 84 years…”
Well, not actually, but if it’s felt like a long time since the first-place Everett Silvertips have been home, that’s because it very much has. Nearly a month has passed since the Silvertips last touched the ice during a game at Angel of the Winds Arena, as they recently embarked on their seven-game road trip across central Canada, as well as a lone stop in Portland, their longest road trip of the season.
How did they do? Well to put it simply, they flourished.
The road trip
The cross-conference trip is usually the biggest obstacle of the year for WHL teams scheduling-wise, as it takes nearly two weeks to complete, spanning thousands of miles in bus travel, a different city night after night, and with (almost) no friendly fans, it’s no one but you, your teammates and coaches to guide the way through it.
Fortunately for some of the Silvertips’ families, the road trip meant getting to see their players in action; a total of six players on the current roster are from Saskatchewan and Manitoba. One of those players was defenseman Tarin Smith, who had a convoy of family and friends that gathered in Prince Albert to celebrate his homecoming.
As for the actual hockey played, the Silvertips were cruising to begin the trip. They won four straight games to start off, outscoring their opponents 17-8. The first two games of the trip in Prince Albert and Saskatoon proved they could win in tight games, with Everett winning both in overtime.
The Silvertips then went to Brandon and Regina, where they utterly dominated both games, 4-1 and 5-1 respectively, also receiving big-time performances from Landon DuPont, with three goals and two assists across both nights.
Off to an insanely hot start to his WHL career, DuPont has looked poised, comfortable, and has eased into the league cohesively. He has 13 points in 10 games played thus far and leads all WHL rookies, along with defensemen, in shots on goal with 43 and plus-minus at plus-12. Aside from a lone down game in Moose Jaw near the end of the road trip, he’s recorded a point in every game this season.
The lone loss of the trip came to the defending WHL champion Warriors, 4-2, but the Tips followed that up with a win over fellow Eastern Conference finalists in Swift Current, 6-3, to end the swing.
After making their trip across central Canada, the Silvertips took a week off before making a brief stop in Portland last Saturday night, a game that saw them win their first game in nearly three calendar years (1,068 days to be exact) at Veterans Memorial Coliseum, thanks to a 3-0 shutout victory over the Winterhawks. The Silvertips concluded the road trip at 6-1-0-0, completing a stretch where a lot of teams would even feel lucky to squeak out three or four wins.
Now, with all the adversarial travel and grind-it-out first month in the books, the Silvertips return home with not only the best winning percentage in the league at .800, but also the second-best among all teams in the CHL, just behind the Windsor Spitfires of the OHL at .850.
With this stretch of play in the rearview mirror, it was good enough for them to crack into the last two weeks of CHL Top 10’s.
Answering the bell
A lot of the question marks that were prevalent during this offseason for the Silvertips seem to have been answered. A main concern was how the offense would look with new coach Steve Hamilton at the helm. So far, so good. The team is currently third in the league in total goals for, with 45. Tyler MacKenzie and Carter Bear are leading the way as offensive playmakers, with 15 and 14 points respectively, and the team is getting contributions from all around.
Meanwhile, dealing with a whole new tandem in net can be tricky, but once goaltender Jesse Sanche got settled in, he’s been really tough to beat. With a 5-2-0-0 record thus far, he leads the league in goals against average at 1.93 and is second in the league in save percentage at .929.
From the scoring to the saves, there’s a lot to look forward to as this Silvertips team returns home—well, for now, that is.
Some strange parts about the schedule for the team are that they are currently embarking on a stretch where, between Sept. 29 and Nov. 20, a total of 52 days, they will play 12 road games and just five, often bunched together, home games. For a team that prides itself on its home-ice advantage, Everett doesn’t get a lot of opportunities to show that off in the early season.
There are definitely questions as to how the Silvertips will be able to sustain rhythm and flow through the long time away. But if this current stretch of winning is any indication, they’re more than equipped to survive the madness.
Silvertips make a few other announcements
Taking the rivalry up another notch, the Silvertips announced that they’ll be playing at Climate Pledge Arena for this year’s rendition of the ‘Battle of the Sound,’ hosted by the Seattle Thunderbirds on Dec. 27. These two teams met in the first ever event of this kind in February, 2022, when Everett hung four goals on the T-Birds in a 4-0 shutout.
This game will be highly anticipated, as Kraken prospects Julius Miettinen and Kaden Hammell could be on full display at their potential future home NHL barn. Not to mention DuPont getting the chance to play his first semi-pro game in an NHL arena.
In more upcoming events, this weekend the team will break out this year’s breast cancer awareness jerseys for ‘Pink the Rink’ night on Saturday against the Wenatchee Wild.
The team will wear the limited-edition hot pink sweaters, then will auction them off after the game with Providence Health and Services, with proceeds going towards breast cancer patients in the Everett/Snohomish County area.
The Silvertips are back home for the week, with a whole lot of Wenatchee coming up. Three of the next five come against the Wild, with matchups at Angel of the Winds Arena set for Wednesday and Saturday. They will also welcome in the Edmonton Oil Kings on Friday night.
Header photo taken by Brian Liesse.
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