Stingy Silvertips add to Royals’ woes
St. Patrick’s Day perhaps isn’t the best occasion to play a team that wears green. Especially a really good emerald-clad team.
The Everett Silvertips showed Friday night why their suffocating style has them on the verge of the Western Conference title heading into the final weekend of the WHL season.
The best defensive team in the league defeated the Victoria Royals 4-2 before a capacity crowd of 7,006 in the last regular-season game of the season at Save-onFoods Memorial Centre.
If you do manage to get past the stingy Silvertips blue-line corps, which includes first-round Montreal Canadiens draft pick Noah Juulsen, you come up against goaltender Carter Hart. The second-round Flyers draft pick, who backstopped Canada to the silver medal in the 2017 world junior hockey championship, made 25 saves as Victoria had its chances.
“We created enough opportunities to win,” said Royals coach Dave Lowry.
Jack Walker scored twice for Victoria, once on the power play, to record more than 30 goals for the second season in succession and the 100th of his Royals career.
Matt Fonteyne scored twice for Everett.
It was the final career WHL home regular-season games for Royals 20-year-olds Walker, Carter Folk and captain Ryan Gagnon, the latter who surpassed Brandon Magee for the Royals’ franchise record for most career regular-season games with 319.
“It was a very hard fought game . . . Everett is a very opportunistic team,” said Gagnon.
About his career record, he added: “It’s been a long journey and I’m honoured to have played this length of time for the Royals.”
Walker is just two games behind Gagnon with 317 played in his career for the Royals.
“The goals are not going to be pretty against this guy [Hart],” said Walker, about what it takes to beat the star Everett goaltender.
Griffen Outhouse, now at 63 and within one game of Lucas Gore’s Royals/Chilliwack Bruins franchise record for most goaltending appearances in a season, made 18 saves.
The Royals end the regular season tonight in Everett in what has become something of a tradition. It’s the fifth consecutive year in which the Royals and ’Tips have closed out a season with a home-and-home set between the clubs.
Victoria (37-28-6) is winless in six games and has fallen to the conference eighth seed. The Royals could face Everett (43-16-11) in the first round of the playoffs.
ICE CHIPS: The Royals were missing five regulars with scratched forwards Regan Nagy and Ethan Price joining previously injured or ill Ralph Jarratt, Chaz Reddekopp and Ryan Peckford.