Winterhawks Back on Winning Track, Take Down Silvertips 5-1

Dominic Turgeon had a goal Friday night

Portland played their first game of the season in Veteran's Memorial Coliseum on Friday night and came away with an old school win in an old school arena, 5-1 over the visiting Everett Silvertips. The Winterhawks established an aggressive fore-check early, forcing the Tips into errors in their own zone and giving the Hawks more quality scoring chances then they saw last Tuesday vs. Prince Albert. The win is only the second for Portland on the year.

Portland was able to get all 4 lines (they only had 11 forwards) cycling and converted on one of their many first period chances when Ryan Hughes forced a turnover, then later grabbed a loose puck and fired it into the feet of Everett's Goalie: Carter Hart. Paul Bittner found the bouncing puck and put it up over Hart for his 3rd goal of the season and the game's opening tally. Portland had more chances in the period, some of which were generated by the great physical work by the line of Alex Overhardt, Colton Veloso and Keegan Iverson. While they were a de facto 3rd line, they really helped set the tempo in the period and often the later lines benefitted from the Overhardt line wearing down the defense.

Despite their hard work, Portland gave up the tying goal to Everett in the 2nd period, when, while on the power play, Montreal Canadians first round pick: D-man Noah Juulsen drove the net and fired a shot off a tough angle. The rebound bounced to Patrick Bajkov, who put the puck past Hill. Instead of letting this throw them off their game plan, Portland came right back out on the fore-check and just over a minute later, Caleb Jones found Evan Weinger on a very long, bank pass that sent him in alone. Weinger drove in and found daylight on the near post; Hart's glove side, beating him for his first goal of the season and the 2-1 lead. Weinger's goal would stand as the eventual game winner. Portland was not done in the period as, after Everett decided to have a D-man take a short handed draw in their own zone against Dominic Turgeon, Turgeon cleanly won the draw to Keegan Iverson, who found Jack Dougherty on the point. Dougherty wound up for the slap shot, firing it high blocker side for his first career WHL goal and a 3-1 Portland 2nd period lead.

Hill

Portland kept up the pace in the 3rd period, utilizing a phenomenal, diving glove stop on Bajkov, by Adin Hill to keep it a 2 goal game and then another strong cycle play leading to a pass from Skyler McKenzie to Turgeon in the slot to take the lead to three goals at 4-1. The Hawks would end the scoring on the night with Weinger's 2nd of the game after Blake Heinrich blocked a shot on one end, leading to a 2 on 1 that Weinger capitalized on by finding his own rebound. The Hawk's 5th goal would end Carter Hart's night, making it the 5th time in 9 career regular season starts vs. Portland that he's been pulled. He was also pulled once during last year's playoff series loss to Portland.

Portland could not solve Hart during their home opener this year but did not have the same trouble tonight as they scored 5 goals on the 17 year old net-minder on 34 shots (my stats). Mario Petit came on in relief for Everett, stopping all 6 shots he faced. Meanwhile, Adin Hill played one of his more consistent games of the season, refusing to wilt even after Everett seemed to make a point of trying to make him uncomfortable by putting sticks and bodies in on him whenever possible. He stopped 33 of 34 shots in the game.

Portland's power play got their 5th man advantage goal of the year from Dougherty on 3 total power play chances in the game. Their power play is now 5/33 for 15.2% (4th worst in the WHL). Meanwhile, Everett converted one time on 4 chances and Portland's PK is now 30/37 or 81.1% (6th in the WHL). Of note is the fact that Everett's PP is 2nd in the league, while their PK is 16th.

Stats:

Player	Goals	Assists	Points	Shots	F/O	F/O %	Hits	B/S	PIM
McKenzie	0	1	1	2	0/1	0%	4	1	0
Turgeon	1	1	2	7	16/26	61.5%	2	0	0
Schoenborn	0	1	1	5	0/1	0%	7	0	4
Bittner	1	1	2	6	0/1	0%	6	0	0
Abols	0	1	1	2	10/16	62.5%	8	1	0
Weinger	2	0	2	5	-	-	5	0	0
Iverson	0	1	1	2	-	-	5	0	0
Overhardt	0	0	0	2	9/11	81.8%	3	0	0
Veloso	0	0	0	1	-	-	6	0	0
Clayton	0	1	1	1	-	-	5	0	0
Hughes	0	1	1	2	2/3	66.6%	0	0	0
Heinrich	0	0	0	1	-	-	7	3	0
Dougherty	1	0	0	1	-	-	10	0	2
Jones	0	1	0	1	-	-	1	2	2
Texeira	0	0	0	1	-	-	3	0	2
De Jong	0	0	0	0	-	-	7	0	0
Czaikowski	0	0	0	0	-	-	0	0	0
MacEachern	0	0	0	0	-	-	1	1	0

Game Notes:
-Cody Glass was held out of the lineup with what appeared to me at the time to be an upper body injury, brought about by his throwing a check in the game against P.A. on Tuesday night.
-This meant that Portland iced 11 forwards and 7 D-men for the 2nd time this season.
-Keegan Iverson was moved down to play with Alex Overhardt and Colton Veloso and they were the most consistent fore-checking line. Everett had all kinds of trouble with them in their own zone, especially the 18 year old Veloso, who won just about every 50/50 puck battle in the attacking zone and even forced a couple turnovers at the Everett blue line with a tenacious back-check. He continues to impress with his dogged determination.
-This line looks to have some chemistry too with some scoring chances coming for both Iverson and Overhardt off of the cycle.

Bittner

-Paul Bittner, arguably played his best period of the season in the first, cranking 6 shots on net and just looking like too much to handle for Everett's D-men. With his long reach and solid body positioning, I want to see more of this from Bittner.
-While Jack Dougherty had his first WHL goal, both Brett Clayton and Ryan Hughes notched their first WHL points on Bittner's goal in the first. No word as of yet, on how they are going to split that puck for a keepsake.
-Evan Weinger took full advantage of being moved up to play with Rodrigo Abols and Bittner, with a season high 5 shots and 2 goals. His speed should work well with the physically dominating Bittner and the shifty Abols.
-Skyler McKenzie had a much better all around effort tonight, as he looked to be making a concerted effort at covering the point on Everett slap shots. On Tuesday, he was slow getting to two different point shots form P.A. and they both wound up in the back of the net
 -Dominic Turgeon did  little bit of everything Friday night. He contributed on the score sheet, won a majority of his faceoffs and led the team in shots on net. He has been transparent on the ice, far too much this season but was anything but invisible tonight.
-Of note is the fact that Everett hit three posts on the night and Keoni Texeira hit another one for Portland (on the power play again). Texeira is getting great at pinching down at the right time for  a back door pass. He just needs to get a little better finesse on the shot, as was the case tonight.
-Brendan De Jong contributed to the Hawk's first goal, by expertly keeping the puck in the zone as a tired Everett unit tried to clear the zone. De Jong made a couple other nifty plays at the opponent's blue line, as well as, used his large frame much more expertly in his own zone. The 17 year old continues to show me something a little more each game. If he keeps this up his "C" grade from NHL Central Scouting should improve.
-Dawson Leedahl could get the attention from the WHL after this game as he buried Blake Heinrich face first into the boards, behind the Portland net. The referees only called a 2 minute penalty, but this does not mean that the league can't look into it further. This was the power play that Portland took advantage of on Dougherty's goal. Heinrich did not miss any shifts after the hit. Blake missed a lot of time at the beginning of last season after receiving a similar hit in a preseason game vs. Everett, resulting in him receiving a concussion.
-Portland goes on the road for the first time since opening weekend Saturday night, taking on the Tri City Americans in Kennewick. The hawks have had a lot of recent luck in the Toyota Center.

WHL Notable Scores:
-Keegan Kolesar had 2 goals, as Seattle trounced Kamloops 7-2.
-Radovan Bondra broke a 1-1 tie in the 2nd period and Vancouver held on to beat Tri City 2-1.
-Reid Gardiner had a 4 point night as Prince Albert kept on winning on their U.S. Division trip, this time 7-4 over Spokane.
-Kelowna got shut out again. This time it was by Prince George 3-0 as Ty Edmonds stopped all 35 shots he faced for a 3-0 win

Winterhawks in the NHL:
-Ryan Johansen has had an assist in every Blue Jacket's game this season, but Columbus has yet to notch a win. Johansen and the Blue Jackets are 0-5 on the season after losing to Toronto 6-3.
-Luca Sbisa had an assist for his first point of the year as Vancouver fell to St. Louis 4-3.

Hawks in the AHL:
-Oliver Bjorkstrand had an assist as Lake Erie took down the Iowa Wild 4-1. Bjorkstrand has an assist in each game he's played this year.
-Ty Rattie scored his first of the season as his Chicago Wolves lost to the Texas Stars 7-3. Rattie has 4 points in his first two games this season.
-Taylor Aronson scored his first goal of the season as Milwaukee fell to Charlotte 7-2.

Hawks in the ECHL:
-Thomas Frazee added two more assists to his season total as Atlanta fell to Florida 4-3.
-Miles Koules had an assist as Quad City beat the Allen Americans 2-1.

Winterhawks in the Pros News:
-Sven Baertschi who was expected to have a breakout season for the Vancouver Canucks was "healthy scratched" tonight. He has only 1 assist through the first 4 games. He is the type of player who will either play in the top 6 on his team or be scratched and it appears the Canucks are going with the latter for now.
-I'm with Oilers beat writer, Jim Matheson who says "cut Andrew Ference some slack." The former Hawk is a professional in every aspect of the word and has done noting but give his all on and off the ice ice for Edmonton. Unfortunately for Ference he is a #6 or 7 D-man at this point in his career and a lot of Oiler's fans do not like a player with a no movement clause in that type of role.

Winterhawks Prospects News:
-Jake Hobson scored for the Prince Albert Mintos as they fell to the Tisdale Trojans 3-2 Thursday, blowing a 2-1 lead they had going into the 3rd period.