What: a best-of-7 Western Hockey league 2nd round playoff series between the Portland Winterhawks (40-31-3-1) and the Everett Silvertips (52-14-4-4).
This is a 1 vs. 5 seed matchup in the Western Conference. The Winterhawks won their series over the Prince George Cougars in 7 games; they were the only lower seed to make it out of the 1st round. The Silvertips were given a lot to handle by the 8th seed Seattle Thunderbirds, but they won in 6 games. 2 of them went to overtime, including a 1-0 double-overtime Game 6, Lukas Kaplan getting the game-winner.
The season series was 6 wins to Everett, 2 to Portland (1 in a shootout). Everett outscored Portland 36-18. This is potentially misleading, as many of the matchups were in the 1st half of the season, when, as discussed below, Everett was a much better team.
We have another revenge series. After Portland won a playoff series with Prince George for the 3rd time in 4 seasons, they now try to win a playoff series over Everett for the 3rd straight season. They beat them in 5 games in the 2nd round in 2023, and they swept them in the 2nd round last season.
Game 1, Friday 4/11: Portland at Everett, 7pm PDT
Game 2, Saturday 4/12: Portland at Everett, 6pm PDT
Game 3, Tuesday 4/15: Everett at Portland, 7pm PDT
Game 4, Wednesday 4/16: Everett at Portland, 7pm PDT
Game 5, Friday 4/18: Portland at Everett, 7pm PDT (if necessary)
Game 6, Saturday 4/19: Everett at Portland, 6pm PDT (if necessary)
Game 7, Tuesday 4/22: Portland at Everett, 7pm PDT (if necessary)
Back to the more traditional format. It will be somewhat of a grind with 4 games in 5 nights, Game 3 through Game 6, as the closeness of the cities gives Portland a Saturday night Game 6 instead of it being on a Sunday. The 2 days between potential Game 6 and Game 7 is a nice luxury.
There is a lot of “how did they get here?” about the Portland Winterhawks. Combining regular season and the 1st round, out of the 8 teams left Portland is last or 2nd-last in most of the main categories. Well, they’re 3rd-worst in goals per game, but in goals allowed they’re last, almost 0.8 goals behind the 2nd-worst. They’re the only team left with a negative goal difference. Their even-strength goal difference is 48 worse than the 2nd-worst.
They did it by taking full advantage of their opportunities when they were on top (their first 2 wins) and by keeping things close enough when they weren’t on top until their top players could make clutch plays (their last 2 wins). Jugnauth is tied at the top in playoff scoring for the whole league, and Chyzowski is tied 3rd, although a 7-game series helped for both of them. Alex Weiermair is tied for 3rd in goals scored, and Diego Buttazzoni is 5th. Štěbeták struggled in the losses, but was more than good enough in the wins.
It’s not a formula that would work long term, but it’s gotten them here when no one expected it, and it’s not out of the question they can stretch it for another series.
The Everett Silvertips were almost wire-to-wire all season with the league’s best record, and they have home-ice advantage all through the playoffs. Normally they would be overwhelming favorites over Portland.
But that team isn’t here. In the last 3 games against Seattle, the Silvertips missed 4 of their top 7 scorers during the regular season. Carter Bear, at the top of that scoring table, suffered a very bad injury on March 9 at Memorial Coliseum, and we know he won’t play the rest of the season. The others are in doubt: top 20-year-old Tyler MacKenzie, 15-year-old phenom Landon DuPont, and midseason acquisition Cole Temple. We have no idea how much any of those will play. Even with those players, they were trending down in the 2nd half. Everett was 28-5-2-1 up to December 31, 24-9-2-3 afterward, counting playoffs. Their goal difference was +83 up to December 31, +21 since. So there is some concern.
But they’re still formidable. Austin Roest wasn’t one of their top 7, but in reality he’s number one as he played only 7 regular season games before being their leading scorer in the 1st round. Julius Miettinen was 8th, but realistically he’s more like 2nd, as he missed about half the season with injuries and tournaments.
Even without DuPont, and not having anyone putting up numbers like Jugnauth, the defensemen are still the team’s biggest strength, with 3 NHL-drafted defensemen. Tarin Smith has had a breakout season and Kaden Hammell and Eric Jamieson have been good at both ends. And LeGall, even after being benched (rested?) early in the series, ended up with a .945 save percentage for the 1st round, following a 57-save shutout in Game 6. Prince George couldn’t shut down Portland’s offense enough; you can see how Everett might.
| 1 | Tyson Jugnauth | POR | D | Identical numbers in the 1st round to likely NHL 1st overall pick in 2026 Gavin McKenna, although as a defenseman and in 2 more games. 3 big plays in Game 7 to help pull it out. Portland has a chances as long as he can keep it going. 4th round pick of the Kraken although it’s heavily in doubt that he will sign. |
| 2 | Kyle Chyzowski | POR | F | 14 points in the 7 games. He’s tied at the top as the player with the most playoff experience in the league. 2nd in total experience of the players who are left in the playoffs. Headed to U of Denver. |
| 3 | Tarin Smith | EVT | D | 8 points in 6 games against the Thunderbirds. |
| 4 | Austin Roest | EVT | F | Everett’s leading scorer in the last series with 4 goals and 5 assists. In a 2nd half where the Tips have had a lot of bad luck, his unexpected return helped balance the scales. |
| 5 | Landon DuPont | EVT | D | Will he play? Even healthy, he hit a wall in the 2nd half of the season, so if he is better, the rest might do him good overall. But we’ll have no idea if he’ll play. An incredible 15-year-old season, of course, and the favorite to be the 2027 1st overall NHL pick. |
| 6 | Julius Miettinen | EVT | F | An injury-plagued season for the Kraken 2nd-rounder. But he looks to be back on track, although a little quiet in the last series. |
| 7 | Kaden Hammell | EVT | D | 5th round pick of the Kraken. Has the most playoff experience out of all the Everett players, by a lot, helped by his 16-year-old run with Kamloops. |
| 8 | Diego Buttazzoni | POR | F | 9-point series, and the double-overtime winner which may have been the key blow looking back in the series. Probably headed to UMass-Lowell after the season. |
| 9 | Tyler MacKenzie | EVT | F | The 2nd injury question mark. Had a surprising start to the season, but only 22 points in 31 games the 2nd half. |
| 10 | Dominik Rymon | EVT | F | 7 points in the last series. |
| 11 | Raiden LeGall | EVT | G | Came to Everett when the restrictions on junior players playing in the NCAA were lifted; he wouldn’t have come to the Tips without that happening. He’s heading to Bemidji State, probably next season? For some players it’s not clear. His numbers are spectacular, but it’s still a small sample size. |
| 12 | Eric Jamieson | EVT | D | He’s going to U of Denver next season along with Chyzowski. Solid defenseman, had an OT winner against Seattle. |
| 13 | Alex Weiermair | POR | F | Leading goalscorer in the PG-Everett series. |
| 14 | Josh Zakreski | POR | F | The series-winning goal. Headed to North Dakota for next season. |
| 15 | Carter Sotheran | POR | D | 5th round pick of the Flyers. 4 goals against PG, he had a great series. |
| 16 | Ryder Thompson | POR | D | He did very well in the back against Prince George star scorers. |
| 17 | Jesse Heslop | EVT | F | 0 goals, 3 assists against Seattle; he’ll need more in this round. |
| 18 | Cole Temple | EVT | F | Another injury concern for Everett. 30 points in 42 games after coming from Regina. |
| 19 | Ryan Miller | POR | F | The tying goal at the end of Game 4, and had a big Game 7. |
| 20 | Ondrej Štěbeták | POR | G | .887 is the 2nd-lowest of the goalies who are left. But he had 3 games over .925 that helped get Portland over the line, including in Game 7. |
Carter Bear would arguably be number 1 if he were playing. Playoff experience in games played is Portland 374, Everett 269; Portland loses 18 games to Tyson Yaremko’s injury, Everett loses 28 with their players currently out.
- Everett’s injuries: DuPont and MacKenzie, while not as good as in the 1st half, are still in the top 10 players of the series and it would be massive if they couldn’t play.
- Portland’s stars: They have the top 2 players in the series, over 2 points a game against the Cougars. Can they keep doing it against Everett’s top defensemen and goaltending?
- The shot totals: Everett has the worst shooting percentage of the teams left. Their game all season has been bludgeoning teams with a huge difference in shots on goal. They only lost the shot total once out of their first 36 games. In the last 38, they’ve been outshot 5 times and drawn 3 times, still great but a slight dropoff. Portland, on the other hand, started the season terribly in the shot department, especially in giving up shots, but in the 2nd half has been quite good. They outshot Prince George in 5 of the 7 games.
- The goaltending: What should have been a big goalie disadvantage for Portland in the last series wasn’t, because Portland’s top players got to Joshua Ravensbergen enough that Ondrej Štěbeták was essentially able to keep the series to a draw (charitably). They’ll need to follow the same formula here. Štěbeták got beaten badly in his first 2 games against the Tips, but in the last 3 games against them had a .931 save percentage. He of course gives up a lot of rebounds and the question will be whether Everett can get to them.