Tuesday . . .

The Everett Silvertips have acquired the rights to G Thomas Heemskerk, 18, from the Kootenay Ice for a 2010 third-round bantam draft pick. Heemskerk, you’ll recall, left the Ice earlier this month and went home to Chilliwack, saying at the time that his heart no longer was in the game. . . . Heemskerk, his heart obviously back in hockey, is expected to join the Silvertips immediately. The Silvertips will be doing some juggling of goaltenders in the coming days, as they now have four of them. Shayne Barrie, 19, has been the go-to guy to this point in the season, with Kent Simpson, 16, backing him up. With Simpson at the U-17 World Hockey Challenge with Team Pacific, former Vancouver Giants understudy Kraymer Barnstable, 18, has been backing up Barrie. . . . This season, with the Ice, Heemskerk had split playing time with Nathan Lieuwen. Heemskerk, in 18 games, was 7-6-2-2 with a 2.88 GAA and a .887 save percentage. In 2007-08, he was 15-4-2-1, 2.65 and .906.
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G Dustin Tokarski of the Spokane Chiefs, who presently is in Ottawa with Canada’s national junior team, has signed a three-year contract with the NHL’s Tampa Bay Lightning. Tokarski, 19, backstopped the Chiefs to the 2008 Memorial Cup title, after which the Lightning selected him in the fifth round of the NHL draft.
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That’s all for the KeyArena. G Jacob DeSerres stopped 25 shots and F Lindsay Nielsen scored both goals as the Seattle Thunderbirds beat the visiting Chilliwack Bruins 2-0 on Tuesday in the last WHL game to be played in KeyArena. . . . The Thunderbirds, who meet the Winter Hawks in Portland tonight, will open the ShoWare Center in Kent, Wash., against the visiting Everett Silvertips on Saturday. . . . Seattle was playing its 13th season in KeyArena. . . . Nielsen, in his fourth season, has six goals. . . . Attendance was 3,378. The Saturday game in Kent is sold out (6,133). . . . Jim Riley, who freelances Thunderbirds coverage to the Seattle Times, noted: “Former T-birds player Kevin Boris became the only man to skate in both the first and last WHL games at KeyArena. Boris served as a linesman at the game on Tuesday night and was the team's first round bantam pick in 1993.” . . . The shutout was the first of the season for DeSerres, who got help from three goalposts. . . . Seattle had F Greg Scott, 20, back in the lineup after he served a one-game suspension for a match penalty he incurred Saturday against Portland.
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G Braden Holtby stopped 22 shots Tuesday as the host Saskatoon Blades dumped the Regina Pats 1-0. . . . F Darian Dziurzynski had the game’s only goal, scoring his sixth goal of the season at 5:58 of the second period. . . . Regina lost D Matt Delahey (separated shoulder) late in the game. He will be re-evaluated on Wednesday but the Pats are talking as though it’s a long-term injury. “It does not look good,” head coach Dale Derkatch told Greg Harder of the Regina Leader-Post. “Of course (it hurts) but I can only coach the guys who are here so they’re going to have to try to do the job. Guys are going to get lots of icetime. I know early in the year we had 24, 25 guys and guys were whining because they weren’t playing. Well, now they’re playing. We’ll see what they’re made of.” . . . Delahey is one of Regina’s big three on the back end, along with captain Victor Bartley and Colten Teubert, who is with Team Canada at the World Junior Championship. . . . Regina had D Mike Scarborough (broken nose/concussion) back, although he didn’t play a whole lot. He missed 10 games after being injured in Kamloops on Nov. 28.
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C Ryan McDonald scored all of Prince Albert’s goals as the Raiders doubled the visiting Swift Current Raiders 4-2. McDonald, who turns 21 on Monday, scored twice in each of the last two periods, his last two snapping a 2-2 tie. His fourth goal came into an empty net. McDonald now has 23 goals this season. . . . According to Adam Hawboldt of the Prince Albert Daily Herald, “McDonald's four-goal affair was the most by a Raider since Todd Bergen scored five goals against Winnipeg on Jan. 13, 1984.”
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In Lethbridge, the Brandon Wheat Kings scored twice in each period en route to a 6-4 victory over the Hurricanes. . . . F Andrew Clark scored twice for Brandon, giving him 18 on the season. . . . Clark’s second of the night was a shorthanded empty-net score after the Hurricanes had cut into a 5-2 deficit with two late goals. . . . C Colton Sceviour had two goals for Lethbridge. He has 20 now. . . . F Dwight King had a goal and three helpers for Lethbridge. . . . Brandon has picked up nine points in its last five games and has moved into fifth in the Eastern Conference, a point ahead of the Kootenay Ice. By coincidence, the Wheat Kings meet the Ice in Cranbrook on Wednesday. . . . Lethbridge has lost four in a row.
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In Kelowna, F Lucas Bloodoff scored both Rockets’ goals in a 2-1 victory over the Prince George Cougars. . . . Both goals — his 10th and 11th — came via the PP as Kelowna was 2-for-8 and the Cougars 0-for-2. . . . Prince George is 0-4 against Kelowna and has been outscored 23-7.
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There’s a new leader atop the WHL scoring race. F Casey Pierro-Zabotel of the Vancouver Giants had his fifth straight multi-point game in an 8-3 victory over the visiting Moose Jaw Warriors and now has a league-high 61 points. . . . Pierro-Zabotel had two goals and an assist. . . . The Giants have won 10 straight. . . . Pierro-Zabotel, who married his long-time girlfriend over the holidays, has 12 points over his last five games and now has a one-point lead over Calgary Hitmen F Brandon Kozun. . . . The Giants had a 4-0 lead in the second period when the Warriors scored three times, two of them coming from F Joel Broda, who has a WHL-leading 28 goals. . . . But the Giants got a goal from F Mikhail Fisenko with nine seconds left in the second period and then added three more in the third. . . . Moose Jaw went with G Deven Dubyk, as starter Jeff Busch (hip) is on the limp. . . . The Warriors were without F Cody Smuk (flu), while D Jason Bast and D Travis Hamonic played despite battling the bug.