Silvertips put blank on T-birds

EVERETT — Usually as unflappable as they come, Leland Irving raised his stick as the final buzzer sounded and let out an audible sigh of relief.

After several near misses, Irving tied the Western Hockey League record with the 21st shutout of his career in a 2-0 win by the Everett Silvertips over the Seattle Thunderbirds.

Irving stopped 37 shots in front of a sellout crowd of 8,440 to help Everett (36-25-0-3) beat Seattle (35-21-5-2) for only the second time in eight tries this season.

"I can't take all the credit," Irving said. "There were a couple of times I was down and out, and my teammates were right there to bail me out. The record is quite an achievement and I'm pretty proud of it, but it's pretty irrelevant compared to what we're trying to get done here."

Irving, the 2006 first-round draft pick of the Calgary Flames, didn't really need much help in this game. He stopped two breakaways early and never wavered from the top of his game.

"I felt sharp right from warmup," Irving said. "I really was focusing on some things in practice that enabled me to get ready to go right from the beginning. I was able to feel the puck early and get some confidence and kind of rolled from there."

Both teams had 37 shots in the game and failed to score on five power-play chances. Everett scored the game-winner at 15:56 of the first period. After perfect passes from Dan Gendur and Zach Hamill, Clayton Bauer scored his 23rd goal of the season just past a diving Jacob DeSerres.

The Silvertips made it 2-0 early in the second period when Kyle Beach stuffed in a rebound that DeSerres grabbed in his catching glove after it had passed the goal line.

Seattle, which had a four-game winning streak snapped, was just OK, according to coach Rob Sumner.

"We didn't play with enough edge," Sumner said. "Did we play bad? No, but we didn't play the way we have been and were only average. We weren't hungry enough in front of their net. That's not good enough, only good enough to come close."

Irving tied the record set by former Seattle goaltender Bryan Bridges. It was the fifth time this season Seattle has been shut out.

The T-birds return to KeyArena tonight for a game against the Kelowna Rockets, a team they might well meet in the first round of the playoffs. The game will start at 6:05 because of the charity hockey challenge being played at KeyArena.