Silvertips whip Chiefs
Everett 5-1 against Spokane this year
EVERETT – The Everett Silvertips took an emphatic step toward showing Wednesday’s 2-1 loss to the Spokane Chiefs was an aberration.
Byron Froese tallied two goals and two assists and the Silvertips turned in a dominant performance en route to a 5-1 Western Hockey League victory over the Chiefs on Saturday at Comcast Arena.
Everett (34-18-2-1, 71 points) came into the contest on a two-game slide that began when Spokane (31-20-3-1, 66) ended the Silvertips’ 14-game winning streak on Wednesday with a 2-1 victory in Spokane.
But Froese and Kellan Tochkin scored goals 1 minute, 36 seconds apart in the first period and the Silvertips never looked back in posting their fifth win in six tries against the Chiefs this season.
Everett pulled into a second-place tie with the Portland Winterhawks in the U.S. Division of the Western Conference.
Fourth-place Spokane trails Everett and Portland by five points with 17 games remaining.
The lone bright spot for the Chiefs came courtesy of Kyle Beach.
The left winger notched his 36th goal of the season to briefly get the Chiefs back into the game, trailing 2-1.
Beach’s tally was short-handed and came with 13 seconds remaining in the first period.
Tyler Maxwell found the net at 5:16 of the second period to increase Everett’s lead to 3-1.
Froese added his second goal of the game – on a power play – 49 seconds into the third period.
Alex Theriau capped the scoring for Everett – and ended Spokane goalie James Reid’s night – with a goal at 4:56 of the third.
Reid finished with 27 saves on 32 attempts. Michael Tadjdeh relieved and stopped all 11 shots he faced over the final 15:04.
Spokane had a season-low 19 shots on goal, while Everett fired off 43 shots.
Spokane also did something that Chiefs play-by-play radio announcer Mike Boyle couldn’t remember them doing in the last eight years – play a whole game without a power-play opportunity.
Everett goalie Kent Simpson stopped 18 of 19 shots to pick up the win.
“We didn’t have the urgency we needed tonight,” said Spokane coach Hardy Sauter. “We hit two crossbars and did not create a power-play opportunity. We were just not good enough on the road with our effort.”