After coming out of the gate strong in their first game of the season, things have quickly cooled for the Tri-City Americans. Following an overtime win against the Portland Winterhawks on opening night, the Americans have now dropped both of their first two games of the season against the Everett Silvertips. Held scoreless in both, the Americans battled hard but found it challenging to find lanes that led to the back of the net. While Sunday’s bout saw more scoring from the Silvertips, Wednesday night saw the Americans put up much more of a fight, outshooting the team in green 30 – 21. Dustin Wolf now stands just three shutouts away from tying for the all-time record for shutouts.
Already in this young season, Everett has out-scored Tri-City 10 to 0 in the two games while capitalizing three times out of seven on the power play. Meanwhile, Tri-City has seen six opportunities on the power play.
Mistakes Hurt
When it comes to the US Division of the WHL, mistakes are often capitalized upon by opponents. Mistakes cost you games. Tonight, Tri-City took seven penalties in total, though only three resulted in a penalty kill. Three of those penalties were majors, and two others were off-setting – which could have been to their advantage but weren’t. Taking dangerous penalties literally costs games in this division. The Americans cannot afford to give up their players to the penalty box.
The Americans fought hard tonight; they battled tough, kept shooting the puck, and gave Dustin Wolf a workout. They didn’t make it easy on the Flames prospect as they forced him to turn away 30 shots. In front of a different netminder, the outcome of this game would have likely looked different. Tri-City offered goaltender Dustin Wolf much more of a challenge than he has seen so far this season. However, it was still not enough to crack the 19-year-old netminder.
Keep it clean
The scoring opened tonight on an Americans’ penalty kill. Just seven minutes into the game, Tri-City defenseman Andrej Golian took a major penalty for a check to the head and received a game misconduct. This left Tri-City down one man for the rest of the game. It also earned his team on a five-minute major, which cannot be killed regardless of scoring. Wright’s second goal of the season proved to be the eventual game winner.
? GOAL! ?
Jacob Wright gets Everett on the board first and it's a 1-0 Silvertips lead! #LetsGoTips | @CocaCola pic.twitter.com/N1humpmotD
— Everett Silvertips (@WHLsilvertips) March 25, 2021
The game as a whole was chippy, with tempers running high. Both teams took penalties and found themselves in scrums, particularly around the Everett goalie. Equipment found its way to the ice as gloves were dropped and more than once. Tri-City faces Everett again on Sunday, March 28th, though both teams meet other rivals between tonight’s game and Sunday’s. Perhaps the break between will help to even tempers out.
WHL first
2004-born forward Ben Hemmerling gave the Silvertips some insurance in the second period when he scored his first-ever WHL goal.
Ben Hemmerling with his first career WHL goal, putting the @WHLSilvertips up 2-0! pic.twitter.com/MmCqntTTvd
— The WHL (@TheWHL) March 25, 2021
Cole Fonstad also scored for the Silvertips, making the final 3-0. It was Fonstad’s first goal of the season to go with four assists. He is the leading scorer on the Silvertips by one point over three players.
Tri-City’s next game is Saturday, March 27th, at home against their rival Spokane. Puck drop is at 6:05 PDT.
