The Portland Winterhawks snapped their 9-game losing streak, beating the Everett Silvertips 3-1 in Portland. Their last win was February 10 in Tri-City.
They outshot Everett 44-28, mostly on the strength of two stretches at the end of the 1st and 2nd periods. They cashed in with goals in both of those stretches–Gabe Klassen in the 1st and Luca Cagnoni in the 2nd.
Their magic number is 3 or 4 points, depending on OT losses, for finally getting over the line for the third seed in the first round of the WHL playoffs. It’s all but a done deal now.
| 10:04 EVT (pp) Ty Gibson (Austin Roest) 0-1 | Off a faceoff win by Roest, Gibson finds the net from the right point, with Jackson Berezowski screening Jan Špunar. |
| 18:49 POR Gabe Klassen (Kyle Chyzowski, Marcus Nguyen) 1-1 | Can’t overstate how important this goal was. With Portland creating a lot of offense since the Everett goal, Chyzowski off an Eric Jamieson turnover found Klassen in front. He hit the post, but in trying to keep Klassen from jamming the rebound in, Tyler Palmer knocked it in himself. |
| 38:13 POR (pp) Luca Cagnoni (Gabe Klassen, Jack O’Brien) 2-1 | Cagnoni one-times Klassen’s pass from the top of the right circle. A screen by Robbie Fromm-Delorme. |
| 59:42 POR (en) Robbie Fromm-Delorme (Jack O’Brien) 3-1 | With the goalie out, O’Brien blocks Dexter Whittle’s long shot, collects the puck, and finds Fromm-Delorme in the neutral zone. He hits the net from a few feet behind the center ice dot. |
| Lead | Time |
|---|---|
| Portland leads by 2+ | 0:18 |
| Portland leads by 1 | 21:29 |
| Tied | 29:28 |
| Portland trails by 1 | 8:45 |
| Portland trails by 2+ | 0:00 |
Pregame: Both teams in a 3-in-3 situation, and Portland was looking for revenge for the 10-3 loss to Everett on Friday. Whose game it was was anybody’s guess.
1st period: Everett got the goal halfway through, and you felt “here we go again”. But after the goal, Portland outshot them 13-1 the rest of the period. It might have been deflating to not score, or have Everett make it 2-0, so Klassen’s goal near the end was very important.
2nd period: An even, defensive period for most of it. In the last 5 minutes, the Winterhawks got some power plays, outshot the Silvertips 9-1, and took the lead.
3rd period: A good defensive period. The Winterhawks kept things drama-free and got Fromm-Delorme’s empty-netter to seal it.
Won on offense, defense, or special teams: Mostly a defensive effort by the Winterhawks.
Best team won?: Yes.
Injuries/suspensions: James Stefan was suspended for a TBD amount of games for his hit on Ethan Ernst Saturday. Ernst missed his game Sunday so the suspension will likely continue.
| Top 10 | Stat line | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Gabe Klassen | POR | 1 goal-1 assist | 10 shots on goal; now has a 4-game point streak. |
| Luca Cagnoni | POR | 1 goal | Game winner. So often the Winterhawks go as he goes. 3-game point streak. |
| Jan Špunar | POR | 27 saves-28 shots | Interesting that he got the start and played 142 of the 182 minutes. Mike Johnston’s comments suggest he judged Dante Giannuzzi’s game on Friday a lot harsher than most people did. He had a good game, with a lot more help than the goalies have been getting recently. |
| Tyler Palmer | EVT | 41 saves-43 shots | You could make the case he had a better game than Špunar, but in this case I’ll go with the star selection. Now at .906 in his partial season with Everett. |
| Jack O’Brien | POR | 2 assists | After a struggle in Everett Friday, had a big game. |
| Ryan McCleary | POR | A good bounceback game from McCleary and Alscher. | |
| Marek Alscher | POR | ||
| Robbie Fromm-Delorme | POR | 1 goal | It was an empty-netter, but as his first goal since January 28, he’ll take it. |
| Kyle Chyzowski | POR | 1 assist | |
| Marcus Nguyen | POR | 1 assist | Played well, needs to cut some of the dumber penalties. |
| Other notables | Stat line | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Ty Gibson | EVT | 1 goal | No Everett player was really bad, but not really good either. |
| Austin Roest | EVT | 1 assist | 37 faceoffs! The game had 68. |
| Jackson Berezowski | EVT | Held well by Portland. | |
| Ben Hemmerling | EVT | The same. |
| Winterhawks | Silvertips | |
|---|---|---|
| Record | 37-17-3-3 | 30-26-2-1 |
| Goal difference | +28 | -10 |
| Goals/game | 3.7 | 3.3 |
| Goals allowed/game | 3.2 | 3.5 |
| Power play | 24.6% | 21.3% |
| Penalty kill | 81.7% | 77.7% |
| Power plays for/game | 4.1 | 4.1 |
| Power plays against/game | 4.0 | 3.6 |
| Outshooting opponents | 45-13-2 | 32-25-2 |
| After 1 period | 23-15-22 | 26-18-15 |
| After 2 periods | 27-19-14 | 30-24-5 |
| Score, last 10 games | 15-39 | 30-31 |
| Score, last 20 games | 57-70 | 61-60 |
Portland Winterhawks
It ends up being a 3-point-out-of-6 weekend. It could have been 4, but under the circumstances, consider it a win. Next weekend is a trip to eastern Washington, and a couple of revenge games against teams that have recently beat them.
You can’t yet evaluate their playoff chances until they’ve put some distance between them and this losing streak.
Everett Silvertips
That’s about the most inefficient way to score 11 goals in 3 games possible. Getting 12 in one game and then being shut out in the next two is just a micron less effecient.
They’re now tied with Tri-City for 5th, with one game in hand. Both Everett and Tri-City have games coming up with elite teams. After that it will come down to which team can beat up the lighter weights more.
Friday at Spokane, 7pm
Saturday at Tri-City, 6pm
Next home game: Tuesday 3/14 vs. Spokane, 7pm
Looking ahead: Friday 3/17 at Seattle, 7pm
Next Everett game: This being the 1st round playoff matchup is 50-50.
