Royals Edge Winterhawks in a Thriller: 6-5 to Sweep Weekend Series

Keoni Texeira had 3 assists in the loss

Portland and Victoria met up again on Vancouver Island on Saturday night and while this game looked far different, as the two teams traded goals on the way to a 6-5 Victoria win, the Royals still notched another one on the win column for their 2nd straight over the Hawks.

Victoria's line of Jack Walker, Vladimir Bobylev and Alex Forsberg were again their most potent unit as they combined for 10 points. Meanwhile, Portland was led by a goal and an assist each from Caleb Jones, Alex Schoenborn and Skyler McKenzie.

Bobylev

Late goals in period, continued to doom the Hawks as they gave up a goal from Forsberg with just over a minute left in the 2nd that put the Royals up 5-4. A controversial goal just 13 seconds into the 3rd gave Victoria a 2 goal lead. The goal was one of two that were off of high deflections, as in the 2nd period, 17 year old Royals forward: Jared Dmytriw deflected a shot off of Portland Goalie Michael Bullion's glove and in. It was ruled his stick was too high. The 2nd high deflection, off of Regan Nagy's stick, occurred further away from Bullion and since it was initially called a goal and there was not enough evidence to over-turn the goal, it stood. Nagy's goal was eventually the game winner as Colton Veloso scored  his 2nd career WHL goal and first of the year with just under 3 minutes left in the game.

Portland would pepper Victoria goalie Coleman Vollrath with many shots late in the game, but could not solve the over-age 'tender.

Portland's Bullion, making his 2nd straight start as Adin Hill continued to be out nursing an "upper body" injury, stopped 22 of 28 shots (WHL stats), while Vollrath, who was also making his 2nd straight start stopped 27 of 32 shots (my stats and WHL's both). Bullion is now 0-2 to start the season with a 5.00 GAA and a 0.825 save %.

Victoria was 1/6 on the power play, while Portland was 0/3. Over the first two games of the season, Portland's PK is 11/13 for 84.6%, while their power play is 0/9 for 0%.

Vollrath

Player	Goals	Assists	Points	Shots	F/O	F/O %	Hits	B/S	PIM
Bittner	1	0	1	5	0	0	7	1	2
Turgeon	0	1	1	2	15/23	65.2%	1	2	4
Iverson	0	0	0	4	1/1	100%	4	0	2
McKenzie	1	1	2	4	0/2	0%	3	1	2
Abols	0	2	2	2	3/6	50%	2	0	0
Schoenborn	1	1	2	4	0/1	0%	2	1	2
Overhardt	0	0	0	1	4/5	80%	2	0	2
Ericson	0	1	1	2	10/19	52.6%	3	0	2
Glass	0	0	0	1	0/1	0%	0	0	2
Clayton	0	0	0	0	0	0	5	0	0
Hughes	0	0	0	0	2/3	66.7%	1	0	2
Veloso	1	0	1	2	0	0	2	0	0
Jones	1	1	2	2	0	0	4	2	0
Dougherty	0	0	0	1	0	0	13	2	2
Heinrich	0	0	0	2	0	0	2	0	0
Texeira	0	3	3	0	0	0	1	0	0
De Jong	0	0	0	1	0	0	2	0	0
Heid	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0

Game Notes:
-Keoni Texeira had 3 assists in the game, his first 3 assist game in his WHL career. Texeira showed potential as an offensive D-men in his first year in the Dub, but is finally starting to show the confidence that is needed while moving the puck.
-Jack Dougherty was a minus 3 in the game. Despite that number, I don't think he had that bad of a game. He threw 13 hits, a game after throwing 10 for 23 on the weekend. He is quickly going to get a reputation for being one of the hardest D-men to play against in the WHL with stats like that.
-Michael Bullion, probably had his worst game in a Hawk's uniform. He seemed to lose where he was in the net on several of the Royals goals. His glove side was a place that Victoria's shooters seemed to target and find success when doing so.
-Rodrigo Abols was demoted off the 2nd line and replaced with Carl Ericson, despite notching 2 assists. Ericson has been one of the best and most consistent Winterhawks through the first two games. He started to show some chemistry while playing with Skyler McKenzie and Alex Schoenborn.
-This could've been though because McKenzie and Schoenborn were the best Hawks on Saturday night. The two forced turnovers, and found space, creating great scoring chances. They had a goal apiece and also had several other solid scoring chances. McKenzie could be in for a breakout season for Portland.
-Brett Clayton came within an inch of notching his first WHL goal as he rang a shot off the post in the 2nd period. Clayton was a force while playing on the 4th line. He had 4 hits in limited ice time and helped create some chances for Colton Veloso and Ryan Hughes, his line mates.
-Portland next plays on Saturday night in their home opener against Everett.