What: In Western Hockey League play, the Portland Winterhawks (19-12-2) play the Tri-City Americans (19-9-2-1).
When: 6 p.m. PST on Saturday, December 28.
Where: Kennewick, Washington’s Toyota Center.
Watch: The game is available to stream on the CLH TV pay-per-view service, which costs roughly US$7.50 each game.
Listen to the audio of Winterhawks and Americans.
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The box score.
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Portland Winterhawks
On Friday, the Portland Winterhawks defeated the Tri-City Americans 5-3 after rallying from a 2-0 deficit to win their fifth consecutive game. Even though they were outshot 22-4 for 20 minutes, they still outshot the Ams 40-36. Alex Weiermair scored two goals to extend his scorching run since joining the team. With two assists, Kyle Chyzowski tied for third place in the league in terms of scoring.
For the rematch, they now go to Kennewick. In a league where the top five teams are all in the Western Conference, Portland suddenly has the opportunity to pass Tri-City and move up to fourth place in the standings. The worst moment to take a critical look at their current situation is while they are on a winning streak, but we’ll see how far they can push the streak.
[Later revisions may be made to the statistics]
| Forwards | (Career games – season points/games) |
|---|---|
| 20 | 19-Kyle Chyzowski (278 – 50/33) |
| 19 |
8-Braeden Jockims (76 – 1/31) 15-Joel Plante (4 – 2/4) 28-Josh Zakreski (209 – 33/31) 39-Tyson Yaremko (110 – 29/33) 88-Alex Weiermair (7 – 10/7) |
| 18 |
17-Carsyn Dyck (36 – 15/33) 29-Hudson Darby (98 – 11/25) 61-Brodie Hankel (22 – 0/22) |
| 17 |
18-Kyle McDonough (91 – 19/28) 23-Ryan Miller (81 – 12/17) 37-David Hoy (26 – 3/26) |
| 16 |
9-Jordan Duguay (33 – 14/33) 72-Reed Brown (33 – 8/33) 96-Luke Wilfley (1 – 1/1) |
Buttazzoni scored the game-tying goal to cap up a 50-second period in which the Winterhawks scored twice. He has six goals, six assists, and an 8-game point streak.
While Chyzowski is on a 3-game streak, Weiermair and Yaremko are both on 5-game streaks.
After missing two games, McDonough made a comeback to the starting lineup and contributed to Buttazzoni’s goal. After missing eight games, Hudson Darby came back and scored a late insurance goal.
| Defensemen | |
|---|---|
| 20 |
27-Tyson Jugnauth (90 – 43/31) 43-Ryder Thompson (267 – 13/33) |
| 19 | 59-Carter Sotheran (188 – 16/31) |
| 18 | 12-Cole Slobodian (38 – 2/33) |
| 17 | 7-Kayd Ruedig (34 – 10/32) |
| 16 | 22-Griffin Darby (28 – 3/28) |
Jugnauth maintains a significant lead in the league’s defenseman scoring competition. He has 17 points, all assists, and an 8-game point streak.
You can practically guarantee that they will make a move before the deadline with six defensemen on the roster. For nearly three months, they have had an open import place.
| Goalies | (Career games – season save%/games) |
|---|---|
| 18 | 74-Marek Schlenker (14 – .897/14) |
| 17 | 1-Ondrej t bet k (22 – .896/22) |
I’ll wager that K performed well on Friday, stopping 33 out of 36 shots. As they have essentially been doing since late October, we’ll see if they continue to switch goalies game after game.
Tri-City Americans
After six losses in seven games, the Tri-City Americans are attempting to turn things around. which followed a winning streak of 17 games in 19 games. They could have lost all that ground in a month if they had lost this game. On November 29, they were nine points ahead of Portland. In those seven games, they have been outscored 18–29, which isn’t awful for a losing streak. You don’t want to take them too seriously during a poor run; the same goes for them as it does for Portland.
| Forwards | |
|---|---|
| 20 |
15-Jake Sloan (237 – 30/28) 27-Brandon Whynott (241 – 38/31) 29-Carter MacAdams (238 – 30/30) |
| 19 | 19-Jake Gudelj (168 – 19/29) |
| 18 |
12-Nick Anisimovicz (98 – 6/23) 13-Jordan Gavin (176 – 28/31) 23-Kale Margolis (23 – 2/18) 28-Grady Martin (149 – 5/30) 66-Gavin Garland (30 – 35/30) 73-Max Curran (68 – 27/28) |
| 17 |
11-Cash Koch (106 – 8/31) 16-Savin Virk (13 – 8/13) |
| 16 | 34-Cruz Pavao (34 – 11/26) |
Despite playing a significant role in their early game 22-4 run of shots, their top strikers didn’t make much of an impact. Despite having six shots, Garland had zero points and was down -2. Whynott had a good goal-scoring play. The biggest effect came from a goal and a few other plays from Grady Martin, who finished the season with five points. The forwards will need to do more.
| Defensemen | |
|---|---|
| 19 |
5-Austin Zemlak (179 – 20/31) 21-Carter Savage (149 – 8/31) 22-Terrell Goldsmith (220 – 10/28) |
| 18 |
6-Merrek Arpin (95 – 3/27) 71-Ismail Abougouche (101 – 1/12) |
| 17 |
3-Jaxen Adam (37 – 4/24) 7-Jackson Smith (101 – 24/31) 20-Kainoah Brankovic (28 – 4/16) |
Smith and 17-year-old defenseman are tied for the league lead in points.
Zemlak and Goldsmith, who are largely relied upon to keep goals from being scored, played poorly on Friday.
| Goalies | |
|---|---|
| 19 |
30-Lukas Matecha (56 – .895/21) 31-Nathan Preston (13 – .900/9) |
| 17 | 35-Ryan Grout (1 – .875/1) |
On Friday, Grout made his WHL debut in a rather difficult situation. For the most part, he did okay. He performed admirably in the beginning but ultimately had to make too many significant saves.
We’ll learn more about why he started Friday rather than Matecha or Preston during this game.Matecha was scratched even though he was classified as recovering from an injury. Perhaps they simply didn’t want to use goalies in consecutive games.
Tale of the tape
| Winterhawks | Americans | Average | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Record | 19-12-2 (.606) | 19-9-2-1 (.661) | .550 |
| Goals/game | 3.9 | 4.0 | 3.6 |
| Goals allowed/game | 3.8 | 3.7 | 3.6 |
| Team shooting % | .114 | .115 | .111 |
| Team save % | .889 | .893 | .889 |
| Power play | 28.2% | 16.5% | 22.9% |
| Penalty kill | 80.6% | 81.5% | 77.1% |
| Power plays for/game | 4.3 | 3.7 | 3.7 |
| Power plays against/game | 3.8 | 3.8 | 3.7 |
| Outshooting opponents | 13-19-1 | 18-13 | 15-15-1 |
| After 1 period | 10-13-10 | 11-10-10 | 11-11-10 |
| After 2 periods | 12-16-5 | 15-8-8 | 13-13-7 |
| Score, last 10 games | 44-36 (+8) | 33-38 (-5) | 35-36 |
| Score, last 20 games | 85-70 (+15) | 81-75 (+6) | 73-73 |
| Total WHL games | 1966 | 2561 | 2487 |
| WHL drafted top 60 | 7 | 12 | 11 |
| NHL drafted | 2 | 2 | 3 |
| NHL drafted top 80 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Players 6 2 or over | 4 | 14 | 8 |
| Players 5 10 or under | 8 | 1 | 6 |
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