The Tri-City Americans ended their homestand Sunday night, winning 5-4 over the Everett Silvertips.
Drew Freer opened the door to this high-scoring contest after Nick Anisimovic found him cross-crease in a bang-bang play. That was Drew Freer’s first goal of the season. Thomas Tien also got his first point as an American. As the period winded down, Andrew Fan gave Kaden Hammell a good bump into the boards, leading to Hammell being assisted off the ice by a trainer. This would end up being a four-minute double minor on Fan. Everett however, would not capitalize on the powerplay in the first.
Julius Miettinen got his first goal of the night as the Andrew Fan boarding penalty was about to expire, Miettinen banged the puck home short-side after the puck ricocheted behind the net off a one-timer and right to Miettinen’s stick. Two minutes later, after a Julius Miettinen tripping penalty, Brandon Whynott was left unattended to at the front of the net where he went top shelf and gave Tri-Cities the lead again.
Physicality began to ramp up in the latter half of the period, but so did the American penalties. The third would come back to bite the Americans in the period. An Everett skater was tripped up on a partial breakaway which led to Dominik Rymon taking the penalty shot. Rymon would go criss-cross applesauce, and go five hole on Lukas Matecha, tying the game up again.
However, Brandon Whynott said hold your horses. Just 15 seconds after the Penalty Shot goal by Rymon, Whynott with a good forecheck caused a turnover and went bardown on Ethan Chadwick from the left faceoff circle to give Tri-City a 3-2 lead.
But that’s not all folks, Carter Bear did some hard work behind the net. Eventually digging the puck out from the trap and skating around for a wraparound. The puck would miraculously find its way five-hole on Lukas Matecha and take us into the second period intermission tied 3-3.
Penalties were the enemy of Everett in Sunday night’s contest. Everett took three in the third period alone. The first was a Beau Courtney tripping penalty. But, Everett had a little trick up their sleeves. More or less Dominik Rymon did, Rymon would find his second goal of the night after deking through two American defenders shorthanded and went high glove on Lukas Matecha to give Everett a 4-3 lead just four minutes into the third period while shorthanded.
Everett almost immediately after killing off an Americans’ powerplay, received another one by way of a Ben Hemmerling slash. A good old saying, you can only play with fire for so long. The Americans had one of the best powerplays in the WHL last season and made sure to make Everett know it. Jake Gudelj took a healthy wrist shot from the point that snuck off the blocker of Ethan Chadwick to tie the game on the powerplay.
The final goal of this contest would be a fairly embarrassing one. Parker Bell took the puck in on the left wing side and took a very harmless wrist shot from inside the left faceoff circle, which rebounded off of Ethan Chadwick’s pad and found its new home on Julius Miettinen’s skate. Miettinen kicked the puck and it went over Chadwick’s pad into the net. Miettinen covered his face in disgust, and Parker Bell was awarded with the goal.
With their win, Tri-City moves to 6-3-1 on the season. Tri-City’s next game will take place Wednesday in Everett with puck drop at 7:05 p.m.
Northwest Sports Desk 