Winterhawks Blank Silvertips Behind Hill's 31 Saves 2-0

The Portland Winterhawks have only three wins on the young season, but two of them have come against the Everett Silvertips. On consecutive Friday nights, Portland was able to limit Everett scoring chances, get some big saves from goalie Adin Hill and pull out key inter-divisional wins.

Portland gave up 16 first period shots to Everett, but were the team to open the scoring. Just over halfway through the period, Latvian import Rodrigo Abols, on the rush,  made a slick back door pass to a charging Colton Veloso, who got his stick on the ice and poked it past Everett's Carter Hart for the 1-0 lead. Portland nearly made it 2-0 late in the period, when Alex Schoenborn poked the puck past Hart in tight and into the blue paint with Keegan Iverson lurking. Everett defense-man Cole MacDonald made an impressive play on Iverson though, tying up his stick, while kicking the puck out of harm's way with his skate.

There was no scoring in the second period but both teams had quality opportunities. The two best Portland chances of the period came on the same power play, as the unit consisting of Abols, Paul Bittner, Dominic Turgeon, Schoenborn and Jack Dougherty created good looks for Schoenborn and Turgeon that Hart was able to turn away. This was the first game this year that Portland has utilized the play-making Abols on the point during the power play and while it didn't lead to a goal, I would not be surprised if they stayed with it.

Everett continued pressing Portland in the third period, but the Hawks' d-men blocked a lot of Tips' shots and Hill made a couple great saves by keeping his right pad on the post while Everett forwards banged away at a loose puck, leading to Everett needing to pull Hart for a goal to even the score late.
The Tips attempted to get the strong slap shots of Patrick Bajkov and Noah Juulsen in on Hill, but Schoenborn, Heinrich, Iverson and Evan Weinger had key shot blocks for the Hawks. Abols then made a strong play at his own blue line to get the puck out and to Turgeon in space. The Hawks' captain then shot from distance and found the empty net to ice the game at 2-0.

Hill stopped all 31 shots he faced and recorded his second shut-out of the season and fourth career regular season clean sheet. Hart was solid for Everett as well, stopping 30 of 31 in the loss.

Hart

Portland's power play, though it looked much better, wet 0/2 and is now 6/42 on the season for 14.3 percent or 20th out of 22 in the WHL. Everett was 0/3 on their power plays and Portland's PK is now 35/44 or 79.5 percent, which is 11th in the WHL.


Stats:

Player	Goals	Assists	Points	Shots	F/O	F/O %	Hits	B/S	PIM
Iverson	0	0	0	2	1/1	100%	7	2	0
Turgeon	1	0	1	5	11/26	42.3%	4	2	2
Schoenborn	0	0	0	4	-	-	4	4	2
Bittner	0	0	0	1	-	-	2	0	0
Abols	0	1	1	1	6/7	85.7%	3	1	0
Weinger	0	0	0	0	-	-	2	1	0
McKenzie	0	0	0	2	-	-	4	0	0
Overhardt	0	0	0	3	10/13	47.1%	2	3	0
Veloso	1	0	1	1	-	-	3	1	0
Clayton	0	0	0	0	-	-	2	1	0
Hughes	0	0	0	0	1/3	33.3%	1	0	0
Glass	0	0	0	0	-	-	1	0	0
Heinrich	0	1	1	4	-	-	7	4	0
Dougherty	0	0	0	2	-	-	3	1	2
Jones	0	0	0	2	-	-	8	2	2
Texeira	0	0	0	1	-	-	4	0	0
Czaikwoski	0	1	1	1	-	-	1	1	0
De Jong	0	0	0	2	-	-	4	0	0

Game Notes:
-Hill may have been trying to make a point to Team Cananda in this game after he was left off of Team WHL for the Canada Russia series in favor of Hart and Moose Jaw's Zach Sawchenko. With a strong run here before December rolls around, Hill may still get an invite to Team Canada World Junior camp, but at this point it is not likely.
-Blake Heinrich had, by far, his best overall game of the season. He had a season high in shots blocked, as well as, shots taken and just played an overall strong game. The over-age d-man logged a lot of minutes and continually made the smart play with the puck, while not allowing Everett to get much of a cycle going in the Portland zone.

Heinrich

-Alex Schoenborn, Portland's other 20-year-old, also played well. He had four shots on net, was the Hawks' best fore-checker and played and got under the Silvertips' skin multiple times. When Alex is playing his game, this is exactly what he needs to do. He will be kicking himself for one sequence though. He was in behind Everett's defense alone on Hart, when he could just corral the puck to get a shot off in the third period. It feels odd to say, but Schoenborn, who had been inconsistent over his first two seasons in Portland and prone to dumb penalties, has been consistently the Hawks' best all around forward so far this season. You can tell that he is one of coach Jamie Kompon's favorite players too as he is getting ice time in all of the key situations. This includes being one of the Hawks' fifth or sixth penalty killing forwards, something which he was not at the beginning of the season.
-Speaking of players whose roles have increased this season, Colton Veloso is now getting time as one of the Hawks top two penalty killers and is often the forward to jump into the top six grouping, when someone is out injured. With how much effort he puts in on the ice you can see why Kompon seems to like him. He scored his second goal of the season tonight.
-Brendan De Jong seems to get a mention here after every single game, but it's for a good reason. The lanky, Victoria native, appears to have grown more confident and activated into the offensive zone a few times. He has good speed and was able to get back in time to prevent a rush the other way each time. He even made up for a Keoni Texeira error at one point by poking the puck away from a charging Everett forward. He has cemented his role as Portland's number five d-man and is making Kompon have to play him each game and rotate Conor MacEachern and Carter Czaikowski in the number six d-man role instead.
-Czaikowski had a key blocked shot as well, on Dawson Leedahl and while his game has a lot to be improved, he has gotten better with more chances to play this season.
-An under-rated part of Paul Bittner's game is his defensive awareness. He had several strong back-checks taking away Everett scoring chances and was often the deep forward defensively. This is something I saw him do last season often against bigger teams. Nic Petan would stay out of the corners, covering the point man, while Bittner would go in deep and play the center role defensively. He appears to do this in spots this year and Abols will just adjust over to his spot, but it seems to work.
-Portland gets right back on the bus and heads over to Kennewick to take on Tri City Saturday night. I will be interested to see whom Kompon puts in net tomorrow. While he probably had Michael Bullion penciled in for this start, he does not seem to ever go away from the hot goalie.


Friday's Winterhawks' News and Notes:
-Solid piece by my partner in crime over at Seattle Sin Bin, Trampus Adams, going over the Hawks' last couple of games.
-Another solid podcast by Chad over at Pucklandia, who has a discussion with new Silvertips' beat writer: Jesse Geleynse. Jesse had a great piece recently, highlighting the early successes of Everett rookies Connor Dewar and Devon Skoleski. He has maintained the quality writing that Nick Patterson put in since day one over at the Everett Herald, Silvertips' blog. Everett's ability to contend this year, relies a lot upon their many rookies producing consistently.

Former Winterhawks in the NHL:
Thursday:
-Seth Jones had two assists as Nashville took down Anaheim by a 5-1 score.
-Nino Niederreiter scored the game tying goal and his line contributed the game winner as Minnesota beat Columbus 3-2 and kept them winless in eight games to start the season. This is the first time a team has gone winless in their first eight since 1944.
Friday:
-Braydon Coburn scored his first goal of the season and the 38th of his career and Tampa Bay beat Nic Petan and the Winnipeg Jets 4-3.
-Rob Klinkhammer scored his first goal of the year as well, but his Edmonton Oilers fell to Washington 7-4.
-Ty Rattie was called up by the St. Louis Blues and should see his first NHL action this season against the N.Y. Islanders Saturday evening.

Former Hawks in the AHL:
Friday:
-Derrick Pouliot had a goal and two assists as his Wilkes Barre/Scranton squad won over Springfield 5-0. Oddly enough the baby Penguins led only 2-0 until the desperate Falcons pulled their goalie with just over two minutes left. What followed was two empty net goals and one against a goalie as they went on to win 5-0.
-Brendan Leipsic had an assist and the Toronto Marlies cruised to an 8-2 win over the Rochester Americans.
-Taylor Leier had a goal and an assist, but Jason Labarbera could only stop 24 of 28 shots and their Lehigh Valley Phantoms squad lost 5-3 to Providence.

Former Hawks in the ECHL:
Friday:
-Anton Cederholm had an assist for the Kalamazoo Wings in his professional debut as they lost to Toledo 5-2.
-Thomas Frazee added another assist to his season total and Atlanta took down Florida by a 4-2 score.

WHL News and Notes:

-Now, former, Spokane goalie Garret Hughson was picked up off of waivers by the OHL's Windsor Spitfires earlier this week Interestingly enough, they already have one over-age goalie in Michael Giugovaz.

-The WHL suspended Carolina first round draft pick and Red Deer Rebels' defenseman Haydn Fleury and Saskatoon Blades' forward Connor Gay, each two games. This was after an incident during Wednesday's game in which Fleury laid a hit to the head on Saskatoon's captain Nick Zajac. Gay then cross-checked Fleury in the head in retaliation. 

-In a somewhat odd bit of news, the Victoria Royals did not have room for a goalie who was drafted in the NHL draft this last June. Six foot six inch goalie Evan Smith is now with the USHL's Sioux City Musketeers, after not being able to beat out Coleman Vollrath or Griffin Outhouse for playing time.

 

Notable WHL Scores:

-Reid Gardiner kept his hot start to the season going with three assists as his P.A. Raiders dropped the formerly hot Moose Jaw Warriors 7-2. He is still tied for second in overall WHL scoring though as Brayden Point had two assists in the loss to keep a 24-22 point edge over Gardiner.

-Ryley Lindgren had the over-time winner for Lethbridge as they beat Swift Current 4-3 to start the season with a 7-2 record. The Hurricanes are already over a third of they way to their 20 win total for last season.

-In another over-time win for the Saskatoon Blades, Cameron Hebig notched the winner over Kootenay: 3-2. The Saskatoon native is off to a fantastic start with 15 points over the first 11 games of the season. If he keeps this up, he could garner interest in next year's NHL draft, after being passed over last year.

-Red Deer beat Medicine Hat 3-1, after taking advantage of a five minute power play given to them after the Tigers' Ryan Jevne committed a "checking to the head" penalty and was tossed from the game. Former Hawk Presten Kopeck had a goal in the Rebels' win.

-Calgary welcomed former Winterhawk goalie Brendan Burke into the fold and he stopped 23 of 25 shots as the Hitmen beat the host Kamloops Blazers 4-2.

-Dillon Dube had two goals and an assist as Kelowna beat Prince George 5-2.

-Brandon won their second straight game on their U.S. Division trip 5-3 over the host Tri City Americans. Rihards Bukarts, after scoring the shoot out winner Wednesday, had two goals and one assist in the Wheat Kings' win. Portland travels to take on T.C. Saturday before hosting the Wheaties Sunday.

-The Yamamoto brothers each had a goal and Tyson Verhelst stopped 31 of 32 shots and Spokane took down Victoria 2-1. The Royals have now lost four games in a row.

-The Seattle Thunderbirds won their fifth game in a row, taking down Vancouver 3-1. Mathew Barzal had a goal and an assist in the win and now has 10 points in six games since returning form the N.Y Islanders.