 |
| Bullion (photo courtesy of Pamplin Media Group) |
Bullion had his best game of the season Wednesday in Kennewick, as he made 29 saves on 31 shots. He consistently made the big saves whenever his team needed him to, especially in the first two periods of the game. Maybe, this strong outing from the Alaska native will give Kompon confidence in him and this will lead to him receiving more starts.
Portland opened the scoring, while on the power play in the first period. Rihards Bukarts set up at the left face off dot and recieved a pass from Jack Dougherty. Bukarts then wired a one-timer that Tri-City goalie Evan Sarthou had no chance to stop. This play was exciting to me as it gives Portland another weapon on the power play. The Hawks can utilize Bukarts' one-timer as a way to get forwards to pull off of Dougherty, which will open up his slap shot. The Hawks would get two more goals in the period as Dominic Turgeon scored his 10th goal of the year and Alex Schoenborn scored his seventh. Turgeon scored his goal when Dougherty found him behind the Americans' defense and he beat Sarthou on the breakaway. Schoenborn then got his in a similar way when Blake Heinrich made an excellent bank, outlet pass along the left boards to Turgeon and he found Schoenborn on the two-on-one break for a three goal first period lead.
Surprisingly, the Americans chose not to pull Sarthou going into the second period and Portland kept the momentum going. Codt Glass took a cue from his team's defensmen and he made a fantastic outlet pass that got Alex Ovrhardt in alone on Sarthou. Overhardt beat Sarthou for his first goal of the season. There has not been a more snake-bit forward on Portland's roster then Overhardt, so it was great to see him finally net his first of the season. A few minutes later Heinrich fired a point shot that Cody Glass deflected past Sarthou. The goal was initially given to Glass, then switched to Heinrich and now back to Glass. The Hawks made their first big mistake of the game when Rodrigo Abols made a terrible pass at the blue line while on the power play, springing Beau McCue on a breakaway. McCue beat Bullion and cut the Portland lead to four.
Tri-City would cut into the lead by one more in the third period, when Morgan Geekie niftily deflected a Dylan Coghlan shot past Bullion for his second of the season. Portland would get that goal back on the power play when Bukarts made Tri-City sell out on his shot and found Keegan Iverson at the back door all alone. Iverson dunked it past an out of position Sarthou for his fourth of the year.
Evan Sarthou had his second poor outing for Tri-City as he only made 28 saves on 34 shots. In his previous start vs. Spokane he was pulled after giving up six goals on 30 shots. Sarthou is definitely feeling the absence of Americans' d-men Brandon Carlo, Brendan O'Reilly Riley Hillis and Jeff Rayman.
Portland's power play was 2/7, but also gave up a short handed goal. Their PP unit is now 14/68 for 20.6% (9th in the WHL). Portland's penalty kill was 5/5 and is now 68/83 for 81.9% on the season (seventh in the league). More outings like this for the PK will help them recover from last weekend's power play goal fest by Kelowna.
Stats:
Player
|
Goals
|
Assists
|
Points
|
Shots
|
F/O
|
F/O %
|
Hits
|
B/S
|
PIM
|
Iverson
|
1
|
0
|
1
|
6
|
-
|
-
|
6
|
1
|
14
|
Turgeon
|
1
|
1
|
2
|
3
|
16/25
|
64%
|
2
|
0
|
0
|
Schoenborn
|
1
|
0
|
1
|
2
|
-
| - | 4 | 0 | 2 |
Bukarts
| 1 |
1
|
2
| 2 | - | - | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Abols | 0 |
0
| 0 | 0 | 4/11 |
36.4%
| 1 | 1 |
0
|
| Bittner | 0 |
1
| 1 | 5 | 1/1 | 100% | 2 |
0
|
0
|
McKenzie
|
0
|
0
|
0
| 0 | 0/1 | 0% | 5 |
1
|
0
|
| Hughes | 0 |
0
|
0
| 0 | 4/11 |
36.4%
| 3 | 2 |
2
|
| Veloso | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
-
|
-
| 6 | 2 |
0
|
| Overhardt |
1
| 1 | 2 | 2 |
3/5
|
60%
| 3 |
0
| 12 |
Glass
|
0
|
1
|
1
| 2 |
2/5
|
40%
| 1 | 1 |
0
|
Weinger
|
0
|
1
|
1
| 0 |
-
|
-
| 3 | 0 |
0
|
| Heinrich |
1
|
2
|
3
| 1 |
-
|
-
| 4 | 1 |
2
|
| Dougherty |
0
| 3 |
3
| 3 |
-
|
-
| 6 |
0
| 0 |
| Jones |
0
| 0 | 0 | 1 |
-
|
-
| 2 | 3 | 0 |
| Texeira |
0
|
0
|
0
| 4 |
-
|
-
| 4 | 4 | 0 |
| Czaikowski | 0 |
0
|
0
| 1 |
-
|
-
| 4 | 0 |
0
|
| De Jong | 0 |
0
|
0
|
1
|
-
|
-
| 0 | 1 |
0
|
Notes:
-Jack Dougherty's return to the lineup had an immediate impact. He had several excellent passes out of the zone and the power play just works so much better with him back there quarter-backing it. Three assists for the 19-year-old is probably a sign of things to come.
-Coach Kompon switched up the " pinball line" (Andy Kemper coined them this) for the first time in over a month. Overhardt was moved to left wing (though he did take five draws) next to Cody Glass. As far as player devliopment goes, I like Glass centering that line more than Overhardt. Alex has been solid at the faceoff dot, but Cody appears to be a more natural fit for center. His excellent pass that sprung Alex was a sign that this was the right move.
-Blake Heinrich continues to have a great season and in my opinion has beeen the MVP of the blue line. One thing he does that is great is he stands up on-rushing forwards right at the blue line, not allowing them to carry the puck in deep. Not only is this great by itself, it also sets a great example for younger d-men on the team.
-Rodrigo Abols had one of his poorer games on the season, but there is still signs that chemistry could be developing on that second line.
-Rihards Bukarts on the point of the first popwer play unit seems like a great fit. It looks like Portland might be copying what Everett does on their power play. Everett has found great success (22.4% this year) as having a right-hand shot d-man (Noah Juulsen) on the right point, forcing forwards to cover him and a forward with a great one-timer (Patrick Bajkov) playing off to his left. Bukarts' goal to open the scoring was eerily similar to the type of goal we've seen Bajkov score consistently.
-Dominic Turgeon has more speed then he's given credit for. He blew past Tri-City d-men twice in a row to set up the second and third goals of the game. He has 10 goals in 17 games and could be a real threat to break 40 this year.
Notable WHL Scores:
Wednesday:
-Kelowna's Tanner Wishnowski scored a controversial game-tying goal with just over five minutes to play and the Rockets went on to beat Vancouver in a shootout 2-1. The Giants' losing streak has now hit nine games. They did get defenseman Brennen Menell back as he returned to the team after saying that he had "lost his passion for the game" last week.
-The Red Deer Rebels kept on rolling as Rylan Toth stopped all 33 shots he faced and they shut out Brandon 4-0. Red Deer has two huge shut out wins over the last week against two of the top contenders in the Eastern Conference.
-Lasse Petersen was released by Calgary last week and then picked up by Spokane, who were without the injured Tyson Verhlest. He made a strong statement to stay on the team whenever Verhlest returns with a 3-0 shut out of Everett. Kailer Yamamoto had two points in the Chiefs' win.
Winterhawks in the NHL:
Tuesday:
-Jannik Hansen had a career night with one goal and three assists in a 5-3 Vancouver Canuck's win over former coach John Tortorella and Columbus. Hansen assisted on two Sedin brother goals and could see more playing time with them. Ryan Johansen had two assists in the CBJ loss.
-Cody McLeod had his third goal of the season as Colorado shut out Philadelphia 4-0. McLeod's career high for goals in a season is 15 and he is on pace to challenge that this year.
-Seth Jones had two assists and Nashville put up a touchdown on Ottawa in a 7-5 win.
-Nino Niederreiter had a goal from what is going to be soon known as "Nino's office" in front of the net on a rebound. Minnesota beat Winnipeg 5-3 in the game.
Winterhawks in the AHL:
Wednesday:
-Taylor Aronson had a goal and an assist in a 6-3 Milwaukee win over Lake Erie. Aronson now has seven points this season and if he continues his strong play, he could see some NHL action before the season ends.
-Taylor Leier had an assist in a 6-3 Lehigh Valley loss to Binghamton.
Winterhawks in the ECHL:
Tuesday:
-Former Winterhawks' captain Brett Ponich notched his first assist of the season, in his 11th game with Kalamazoo, in a 7-3 loss to the Manchester Monarchs. He is playing on their blue line with another former Hawks Anton Cederholm. This isn't the ECHL team with the most former Portland defensemen though as Alaska has three with the likes of Garrett Haar, Patrick Wellar and William Wrenn. Gasper Kopitar had three points for the other side in the Monarchs' win.
-Thomas Frazee scored his second goal of the year in a 8-2 Atlanta loss to the Florida Everblades. Frazee now is averaging a point-a-game with 10 points.
-Tristan King had an assist in a 5-2 Allen Americans' win over Wichita. King has seven points in 10 games this season, which is his tenth in the ECHL.
Wednesday:
-Two of those former Winterhawk d-men with Alaska factored on the score sheet for as Garrett Haar and William Wrenn each had an assist in a 7-4 loss to Quad City.
Winterhawks' and WHL News/Links:
-I had the honor of being interviewed over on the Seattle Sin Bin podcast. In the interview I go over the Winterhawks' struggles with identity, as well as, the CHL's Canada Russia Series. They will be interviewing a different U.S. Division writer each Tuesday this season.
-I previewed the CHL Russia series earlier this week there and should have my recap posted soon.
-There is a new Pucklandia podcast up and it's a good one. Swift Current Broncos' play-by-play guy Shawn Mullin discusses the Broncos and the WHL.
Goal tender Austin Lotz has left the Tigers due to a season ending shoulder injury. Will undergo surgery.
— Bob Ridley (@BobRidley_CHAT) November 11, 2015
-A heart-breaking end to Lotz's WHL career. The Tigers then acquired goalie Mack Shields from Prince George earlier today.-I'll leave this terrible news here:
Proud to announce I have signed my NLI! Can't wait to play college hockey with these guys! @Buccigross #terriers pic.twitter.com/Vv5aaCfAmn
— Kieffer Bellows (@BellowsKieffer) November 12, 2015
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