It was a standing room only crowd with more than 8200 fans as Local Heroes Night with the Everett Silvertips and Seattle Thunderbires returned to Xfinity Arena in downtown Everett.
The game went to overtime with the ‘Tips falling to the T-Birds 4 – 3. This was the 4th year in which both Law and Fire members combined forces to raise funds for the Snohomish County Law Enforcement Memorial Fund (SCLEMF) and the Medic One Foundation. Here are a few MyEverettNews.com photos from the game.
Lincon rides past an Everett Police SUV on the ice.
The game pucks were delivered by members of the helicopter rescue team.
The helmets and gloves came off for a fight.
Mukilteo Police Chief Cheol Kang leads other police and fire chiefs off the ice after the puck drop.
A dinosaur wearing a fire helmet is assisted by a bear as cops and firefighters play to a 1-1 tie in broom ball.
It was a fun night and thousands of dollars were raised for some great causes.
Here’s the official game recap…
Keegan Kolesar’s seventh goal of the season with 15.9 seconds remaining helped the Seattle Thunderbirds escape in overtime, 4-3 over the Everett Silvertips before a standing room only crowd of 8,249 at XFINITY Arena on Saturday in WHL action.
Tonight’s OT loss was only the second time the Silvertips have lost in overtime at home this season. Everett is now 18-3-2-0 at home and extended a streak to 8-0-3 in the last 11 games against the Thunderbirds in Everett.
Although the Silvertips fell to the Thunderbirds this evening, they are 2-0-1-1 against Seattle for the regular season and outscored them 12-10 in those four games. Carter Hart, in his return to Everett after the World Juniors, took the first star honors with 34 saves while the Silvertips rallied out of two deficits in the final two periods to force OT.
The first few minutes of the game saw big saves from Carter Hart as Seattle was pressing early on. At the 4:00 mark, Jarrett Tyszka took a holding penalty, giving the Silvertips the first man advantage of the game. The Silvertips did not get a solid scoring chance nor a shot on goal for the power play and were held to no shots for the first seven minutes of the game. Both Carter Hart and Rylan Toth were solid in net for the duration of the first period and kept the game at 0-0 to end the first period. Both teams had 8 shots a piece.
The beginning of the second period saw a similar pace to the first period—lots of end-to-end chances with the two goaltenders standing tall. Davis managed to send one past Toth but the goal was waved off due to goaltender interference. Shortly after that, there was a lot of traffic in front of Carter Hart and he was sent into the net along with the puck to make the score 0-1 Thunderbirds at the 8:22 mark with the goal by Ethan Bear.
Just 24 seconds later, on a very similar play, Alexander True went five hole as chaos ensued around the crease for Carter Hart to make the score 0-2. At 10:07, Devon Skoleski and Bryce Kindopp set up Connor Dewar to make the score 1-2. The team seemed to be reignited by the goal and continued to press on.
At 12:20 Riley Sutter and Montana Onyebuchi set up Eetu Tuulola to tie the game up at 2-2. After the game was tied, both teams began to chirp more at each other and the game seemed to get even more physical. At 14:28 Montana Onyebuchi and Austin Strand wrestled down to the ice and went off for five minutes for fighting.
The Silvertips had another chance on the power play at 15:40 as Matthew Wedman went off for slashing. There were some good chances but the Tips were unable to capitalize on the power play. Everett and Seattle both had 13 shots in the second period.
Right at the beginning of the third period, Patrick Bajkov tripped up Mathew Barzal at the 38 second mark to give Seattle a shot on the power play. Seattle pressed and got excellent chances but Carter Hart and strong defensive plays by the Silvertips’ special teams kept the score tied 2-2.
Once the Silvertips went back to full strength, the game continued to be extremely physical with a lot of fast end-to-end hockey. A scary moment happened at the 7:59 mark when Austin Strand cross-checked Devon Skoleski headfirst into the boards and left him laying on the ice briefly. Scrums ensued as the trainer went to check on Skoleski.
Skoleski was able to skate off the ice on his own power but missed the majority of the third period as he was being evaluated. At 15:32 Ryan Gropp set up Barzal for the go ahead goal to make the score 2-3 Thunderbirds. Thanks to a weird bounce, at 17:23, Matt Fonteyne tied the game back up 3-3 with helpers from Patrick Bajkov and Wyatte Wylie. The third period ended with Everett getting 10 shots and Seattle getting 9 shots.
Carter Hart stood tall in OT and made huge saves to keep the Silvertips in the game, stopping the first seven shots. With 15.9 left, Everett’s loose line change led to a breakaway goal by Keegan Kolesar.
Carter Hart made 8 saves in overtime and his counterpart, Rylan Toth, made 28 saves.
The Silvertips will return with a game against Kelowna on Monday, January 16 at 2:05 PM PT (Fox Sports 1380 / WHL Live). Half price tickets are available starting at $8 at www.everettsilvertips.com/ticketpromos.
January 14, 2017
Events in Everett, Everett Sports