For nearly 47 minutes, Tri-City Americans goalie Beck Warm kept the Everett Silvertips at bay. Despite the Silvertips owning a decisive edge in shots at 33-9 through 40 minutes the score was just 1-0 in Game 1 of the their first round series with the Americans.
Then, in the third period, while Tri-City was on the power play, the game changed. Connor Dewar flew in on a short handed break and beat Warm for his second goal of the night. Sparked by the Dewar’s short handed goal, Everett finally cracked Warm en route to a 6-1 win at Angels of the Wind Arena in Everett and a 1-0 series lead.
The Everett captain is the heart and soul of the Silvertips and so it should come as no surprise that his goals paved the way for more for Everett. A concern for Everett has to be his health though as after taking a tough check into the post and then boards on the goal, he left but did not play much afterwards.
Martin Fasko-Rudas and Max Patterson each had a goal and two assists and Jake Christiansen had three assists to help Everett to the win in Game 1 of their best-of-seven series.
“I thought we played a good 60 minute game, start to finish,” Everett head coach Dennis Williams told everettsilvertips.com after the game. “It was one of our better starts. A little tough luck scoring but at the end of the day I’m pretty proud of our effort.”
Warm ended up stopping 42-of-47 shots. This was the third time this season he has faced at least 47 shots from the Silvertips this year.
“I thought our guys stuck to the gamp plan. We kept our consistency and everyone contributed. I thought we were disciplined in our system,” Williams said.
Meanwhile Everett goalie Dustin Wolf was calm and collected despite not being tested much and turned away 21-of-22
Everett opened the scoring as Dewar spun off the side boards and wired a shot by Warm with Fasko-Rudas screening him.
That was it for scoring for the first two periods, despite many good looks for the Silvertips.
After Dewar added to the lead in the third, Max Patterson made it 3-0. Robbie Holmes tracked down a loose puck, had time and then found an open Patterson for his sixth career playoff goal.
Tri-City would not go away though as Nolan Yaremko filed a backhand by Wolf off a turnover. He was set up by Parker AuCoin. The goal came with 6:30 left.
The aggressive Americans pulled Warm for an extra attacker, down two goals with 2:37 left. It backfired though as Zack Andrsuiak found the vacant net.
Then with 1:21 left, new addition Lucas Cullen pounced on the rebound of a Christiansen shot for his first marker with Everett and his first post-season goal. This was just his third game with Everett.
“It was definitely a good confidence booster,” Cullen told everettsilvertips.com about the goal. I know that we played hard all night and at the end it paid off for us in the last couple minutes. For me it’s different coming into a different league that has different paces and with different expectations. At the same time, playing a regular shift and playing in key situations is really nice and is definitely confidence booster.”
Fasko-Rudas added another marker to make this game look more lopsided with a 6-1 final score.
Game notes:
-In the first period, Lucas Cullen was checked into the post at the end of the bench above the boards. He went face first into the pole and went straight to the locker room. Obviously he returned.
–Riley Sutter continues to be absent from the lineup for the Silvertips, though it was reported that he skated in a non-contact jersey earlier this week.
-Joining him on the list of scratches for Everett were forwards Jalen Price, Conrad Mitchell and Justyn Gurney and defenseman Dylan Anderson.
-The Americans scratched defensemen Jarod Newell and Tom Cadieux and Marc Lajoie and forward Sequoia Swan.
-Tri-City went 0-for-1 on the power play, while Everett was 1-of-4.
-Dewar was 22-of-31 at the faceoff dot, while Reece Vitelli was 8-for-10 and Max Patterson was 11-for-18. Dewar led the way with seven shots, while Andrusiak had six.
-For Tri-City, Yaremko was 7-of-23 at faceoffs, Krystof Hrabik was 4-for-11, Connor Bouchard was 4-of-10 and Riiley Sawchuk went 5-of-11. Kyle Olson, Sawchuk and Aaron Hyman each had five shots on net to lead the team.
