The Portland Winterhawks almost lost a game they had no business losing, but in overtime, they ended up winning a game they had no business winning. In the end, Josh Zakreski scored with 4:11 left in overtime to give the Winterhawks a 6-5 win over the Everett Silvertips, and the best-of-7 series is tied 2-2.
In a very contentious, spiteful game, especially after the halfway mark of the 2nd period, Everett scored 2 goals in the last 4 minutes of the 3rd period to tie the game 5-5, helped by a late penalty to Alex Weiermair. With a few calls going against Portland, they lost some concentration and were very jittery in overtime, before Zakreski took advantage of a missed clear by Tarin Smith and beat Raiden LeGall to win it.
It would have been a disastrous loss for Portland, one that would be hard to come back from.
The series continues Friday in Everett.
| 1st 3:16 POR Kyle Chyzowski (Josh Zakreski, Max Pšenička) 1-0 |
| 1st 8:07 EVT (PP) Tyler MacKenzie (Landon DuPont, Tarin Smith) 1-1 |
| 1st 9:39 POR Kyle Chyzowski (Josh Zakreski, Kayd Ruedig) 2-1 |
| 2nd 11:19 POR (PP) Diego Buttazzoni (Tyson Jugnauth, Alex Weiermair) 3-1 |
| 2nd 14:27 EVT (PP) Landon DuPont (Tarin Smith) 3-2 |
| 2nd 18:14 POR Kyle Chyzowski (Tyson Jugnauth, Diego Buttazzoni) 4-2 |
| 3rd 4:22 EVT Cole Temple 4-3 |
| 3rd 7:30 POR (PP) Kayd Ruedig (Diego Buttazzoni, Alex Weiermair) 5-3 |
| 3rd 15:47 EVT Kaden Hammell (Zackary Shantz, Tarin Smith) 5-4 |
| 3rd 18:59 EVT (PP) Kaden Hammell (Eric Jamieson, Jesse Heslop) 5-5 |
| OT 15:49 POR Josh Zakreski (Diego Buttazzoni, Alex Weiermair) 6-5 |
| Portland leads by 2+ | 17:33 |
| Portland leads by 1 | 36:38 |
| Tied | 21:38 |
| Portland trails by 1 | 0:00 |
| Portland trails by 2+ | 0:00 |
Pregame: It all started before the gameTha. Dominik Rymon was out for Everett with an upper-body injury. Ryan Miller, who hit Rymon and got a 2-minute penalty, was given a suspension on supplemental discipline. The hit wasn’t great, but it didn’t look like it was worse than 2 minutes. Nevertheless, since Rymon was hurt, the league decided to drop the hammer, which fits with their policy although it’s a pretty extreme application of it. Everett was trying to take a 3-1 lead, Portland trying to tie the series.
1st period: Somewhat of a mediocre period for Portland, but they had a 2-1 lead despite being outshot 10-7. 3 pretty random goals, 2 of which went the Winterhawks way.
2nd period: A spiteful period, most notably with Josh Zakreski getting sandwiched and knocked down, then getting facewashed by Cole Temple as he was laying on the ice, a really cheap play. Ryan McDonough also missed time after a hit by Jaxsin Vaughan, probably a clean play. Portland played a very good period, and Kyle Chyzowski completed the hat trick to make it 4-2 after 40.
3rd period: Everett came out much better, and Temple got the goal to make it 4-3, which didn’t make people happy after his earlier incident. Portland was in some trouble, but Kayd Ruedig settled them with a nice shot to make it 5-3. That bought the Winterhawks about 8 minutes. They played well, and looked to have it almost in hand.
Then it got ugly. A long shot by Kaden Hammell found the net to make it 5-4. On the next faceoff, Weiermair was called for butt-ending Julius Miettinen. It was a double minor. Portland got through 3 minutes of the kill, but as it turned to 6 on 4 Hammell tied the game.
In the final minute, Diego Buttazzoni tried to carry the puck down the middle through 3 Silvertips. He was obviously tripped, but there was no call. That brought the crowd down even more on the officials. Overtime.
Overtime: More controversy as Chyzowski was hooked by Austin Roest going down the middle, but they also took Chyzowski for embellishment.
Portland was a mess after that. They were jittery, with not just turnovers, but a number of turnovers right on Everett sticks. Their composure was gone, and they were somewhat lucky to make it to the media timeout halfway through the period.
But despite that and despite getting outshot 10-3, the gods eventually smiled on them with Zakreski winning the puck in front and getting the winner.
How it was won: 1) Goaltending was a big difference in the game. Ondrej Štěbeták, despite giving up 5, was a top player and made about twice as many big saves as Raiden LeGall. He did just enough while the Winterhawks were losing their minds in overtime.
2) With Miller out the Winterhawks loaded up the top line, putting together Chyzowski, Zakreski, and Diego Buttazzoni. Counting power plays, the three finished with a total of 5 goals and 5 assists.
Key stretch/moment: Second to the winner: Kayd Ruedig’s 3rd period goal to make it 5-3. That settled them down for a while until Everett’s late run.
Surprising: Portland wins again while losing the special teams numbers.
Not surprising: Everett outshoots the opposition for the 69th time in 78 games.
Controversies: Oh there were a lot. The Weiermair butt-end: it didn’t look like a lot; blink and you missed it. It didn’t look like it could do a lot of damage but Miettinen was hunched over a bit afterward. Generally, butt-ending is usually called regardless of the game situation. All the contentious calls were more or less like that: each defensible to at least a small extent on their own, but put together it seemed like everything was going wrong for the Winterhawks. If they had lost, this would have been story #1, #2, and #3 among Winterhawks fans. There were a couple of other calls and questionable icings too.
Best team won?: As long as you don’t look too closely at the overtime, you have to say yes.
Injuries/suspensions: Nothing should come out of the Weiermair butt-end, but we’ll see. Ryan McDonough took a hard hit from Jaxsin Vaughan in the 2nd. It looked like he might be done for, but he came back.
| Top 10 | Stat line | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Josh Zakreski | POR | 1 goal, 2 assists | The winner. |
| Kyle Chyzowski | POR | 3 goals | His 4th career hat trick, 1st in the playoffs. 3-game point streak. |
| Diego Buttazzoni | POR | 1 goal, 3 assists | Assist on the game winner. |
| Ondrej Štěbeták | POR | 43 saves-48 shots | Numbers aren’t great, but but he made a bunch of big saves and outplayed his counterpart. |
| Landon DuPont | EVT | 1 goal, 1 assist | Another strong game, the best player of the series so far. |
| Kaden Hammell | EVT | 2 goals | Made it 5-4 and then 5-5 with 2 late 3rd period goals. |
| Kayd Ruedig | POR | 1 goal, 1 assist | A great shot at a time Portland needed it. |
| Cole Temple | EVT | 1 goal | Cheap shot not appreciated but he had a good game. |
| Tyson Jugnauth | POR | 2 assists | Gavin McKenna has been have a big couple of games, so Jugnauth has dropped into 2nd in playoff scoring. 5-game point streak. |
| Alex Weiermair | POR | 3 assists | 3-game point streak. |
| Other notables | Stat line | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Austin Roest | EVT | Rare scoreless game for him. 3-game point streak snapped. | |
| Carter Sotheran | POR | 3-game point streak snapped. Had some turnovers early on; unfortunately the rest of the team eventually caught up to him in this. | |
| Tarin Smith | EVT | 3 assists | Conceding the late goal put some tarnish on a 3-assist game. |
| Raiden LeGall | EVT | 25 saves-31 shots | Came off 2nd-best to Štěbeták. |
| Winterhawks | Silvertips | |
|---|---|---|
| Record | 42-33-3-1 (.557) | 54-16-4-4 (.744) |
| Goals/game | 3.8 | 4.0 |
| Goals allowed/game | 3.9 | 2.7 |
| Team shooting % | .108 | .101 |
| Team save % | .888 | .909 |
| Power play | 25.0% | 26.2% |
| Penalty kill | 74.7% | 77.7% |
| Power plays for/game | 3.9 | 3.8 |
| Power plays against/game | 3.6 | 3.4 |
| Outshooting opponents | 37-40-2 | 69-6-3 |
| After 1 period | 27-32-20 | 34-17-27 |
| After 2 periods | 32-35-12 | 46-22-10 |
| Score, last 10 games | 37-35 (+2) | 35-31 (+4) |
| Score, last 20 games | 75-72 (+3) | 70-54 (+16) |
Portland Winterhawks
They have to think they’re a real chance to win this now.
Everett Silvertips
They just missed out on a 3-1 lead, twice.
Friday 4/18 at Everett, 7pm PDT (Game 5)
Saturday 4/19 vs. Everett, 6pm PDT (Game 6)
Tuesday 4/22 at Everett, 7pm PDT (Game 7 if necessary)