What: In Western Hockey League play, the Portland Winterhawks (15-12-2) play the Prince George Cougars (16-8-3-2).
When: December 13, Friday, 7 p.m. PST.
Memorial Coliseum is the location.
Watch: The game is available to stream on the CLH TV pay-per-view service, which costs roughly US$7.50 each game.
Check out the Winterhawks and Cougars audio.
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The box score.
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Portland Winterhawks
The Portland Winterhawks had a significant victory on Wednesday. Portland defeated the Everett Silvertips, the top-ranked team in the Western Hockey League, 4-3 on the road, with Kyle Chyzowski’s goal 40 seconds into the game setting the tone. Marek Schlenker made 48 of 51 saves, while Chyzowski later scored another game-winning goal.
They now host the Prince George Cougars, who they defeated in one of the most insane three-game winning streaks of the season. With three seconds remaining in regulation, Ryan Miller’s 2-on-1 goal gave them a 3-2 victory at home. Then in Prince George, they trailed 2-0, took the lead, gave up a late goal for the tie, and then won on Diego Buttazzoni s overtime goal. The following night, they won everything. After falling behind 4-0 after two periods, they tied the score with four goals in the third before Buttazzoni won it in the shootout. The teams’ reputations were so dissimilar at the time that defeating PG once seemed like a huge achievement. With Portland having just one less victory in the same number of games, it isn’t entirely the case anymore.
[Later revisions may be made to the statistics]
| Forwards | (Career games – season points/games) |
|---|---|
| 20 | 19-Kyle Chyzowski (274 – 43/29) |
| 19 |
8-Braeden Jockims (73 – 1/28) 15-Joel Plante (0 – 0/0) 28-Josh Zakreski (205 – 29/27) 39-Tyson Yaremko (106 – 21/29) 88-Alex Weiermair (3 – 3/3) |
| 18 |
17-Carsyn Dyck (32 – 12/29) 29-Hudson Darby (97 – 10/24) 61-Brodie Hankel (20 – 0/20) 90-Diego Buttazzoni (176 – 34/26) |
| 17 |
18-Kyle McDonough (89 – 18/26) 23-Ryan Miller (81 – 12/17) 37-David Hoy (23 – 3/23) |
| 16 |
9-Jordan Duguay (29 – 14/29) 11-Owen Chapman (3 – 0/3) 72-Reed Brown (29 – 8/29) |
The Winterhawks have added a seasoned 19-year-old to their roster for the second consecutive week. Joel Plante, a point-per-game player with Nanaimo in the BCHL and a University of Nebraska-Omaha commit, was lured in by them. That reinforces their stocks with Miller and Hudson Darby still out and not looking to come back until after Christmas. When they return, they will need to drop at least one forward.
Chyzowski has a four-game point run and is ninth in the league in scoring. Buttazzoni is also on a four-game winning streak.
| Defensemen | |
|---|---|
| 20 |
43-Ryder Thompson (263 – 13/29) |
| 19 | 59-Carter Sotheran (184 – 13/27) |
| 18 | 12-Cole Slobodian (34 – 2/29) |
| 17 | 7-Kayd Ruedig (30 – 6/28) |
| 16 |
22-Griffin Darby (26 – 3/26) 93-Aaron Zulinick (2 – 0/2) |
Jugnauth leads the league in defenseman scoring by five points and is tied for 19th place overall. He has a 4-game point streak in which he has 11 (!) assists.
| Goalies | (Career games – season save%/games) |
|---|---|
| 18 | 74-Marek Schlenker (13 – .894/13) |
| 17 | 1-Ondrej t bet k (19 – .890/19) |
Both goalies have success over the Cougars. t bet k has a .913 save percentage in 2 games, Schlenker a .950 save percentage in 1 game.
Prince George Cougars
The Cougars similarly had a big Wednesday road win. A late goal by Koen Ziemmer tied the game in the final minute, and then they beat the Tri-City Americans in a shootout, 4-3. Joshua Ravensbergen was the number 2 star, stopping 30 of 33.
Superficially, they ve underachieved up to this point, winning 16 out of 29 after being one of the preseason favorites. But to some extent that s unfair. They re 2-5 in overtime and shootouts, so they ve been close to winning a few more. And with Ravensbergen they re 15-3-3-1; with Cooper Michaluk they re 1-5-0-1. Presumably in the playoffs they ll have Ravensbergen in every game. It might even help them in the long run, if it motivates them to try to improve at the deadline with a team that s better than their record.
This is their second of 7 straight road games, on both sides of the Christmas break. They aren t home again until January 3. They ll possibly be without captain and top player Riley Heidt for all of that, as he will be at World Juniors.
| Forwards | |
|---|---|
| 20 |
13-Koehn Ziemmer (234 – 33/22) 18-Borya Valis (221 – 40/27) |
| 19 |
19-Van Eger (85 – 2/15) 22-Evan Groening (103 – 12/29) 27-Riley Heidt (270 – 37/22) 29-Matteo Danis (185 – 9/29) |
| 18 |
11-Hunter Laing (113 – 19/27) 32-Terik Parascak (110 – 41/25) |
| 17 |
16-Aiden Foster (110 – 6/29) 23-Lee Shurgot (50 – 15/29) 37-Jett Lajoie (103 – 18/28) |
| 16 |
9-Patrick Sopiarz (20 – 1/20) 28-Kayden Lemire (29 – 3/29) |
Besides Ziemmer s tying goal, Parascak and Shurgot each had multi-point games. Ziemmer, Parascak, Carels, and Valis all have 3-game point streaks.
| Defensemen | |
|---|---|
| 20 | |
| 19 | 2-Bauer Dumanski (243 – 5/23) |
| 18 |
8-Fraser Leonard (72 – 0/18) 15-Corbin Vaughan (103 – 3/14) |
| 17 |
25-Arseni Anisimov (20 – 8/20) 38-Leith Hunter (20 – 2/20) |
| 16 | 4-Carson Carels (31 – 17/24) |
Kmec is tied for 7th in defensemen scoring. But they re obviously relying too much on him. You d expect they d make some kind of move at the deadline. They had Ephram McNutt, who had 10 points in 15 games, but they traded him (and a 2nd) to Regina for Vaughan.
| Goalies | |
|---|---|
| 19 | 35-Cooper Michaluk (84 – .869/8) |
| 18 | 31-Joshua Ravensbergen (72 – .901/22) |
They have back-to-back games in the middle of a dense road stretch of games before the break. In theory, they could go with either goalie. But given the playoff loss last season and the three games earlier, they probably really want to beat Portland.
Tale of the tape
| Winterhawks | Cougars | Average | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Record | 15-12-2 (.552) | 16-8-3-2 (.638) | .553 |
| Goals/game | 3.8 | 4.0 | 3.6 |
| Goals allowed/game | 4.0 | 3.4 | 3.6 |
| Team shooting % | .111 | .126 | .111 |
| Team save % | .884 | .893 | .889 |
| Power play | 29.0% | 25.4% | 22.9% |
| Penalty kill | 80.2% | 82.2% | 77.1% |
| Power plays for/game | 4.3 | 3.9 | 3.8 |
| Power plays against/game | 3.8 | 4.1 | 3.8 |
| Outshooting opponents | 10-18-1 | 14-14-1 | 14-14-1 |
| After 1 period | 7-12-10 | 13-4-12 | 10-10-9 |
| After 2 periods | 9-15-5 | 12-8-9 | 11-11-6 |
| Score, last 10 games | 46-42 (+4) | 37-35 (+2) | 35-36 |
| Score, last 20 games | 71-77 (-6) | 84-70 (+14) | 73-74 |
| Total WHL games | 1897 | 2538 | |
| WHL drafted top 60 | 7 | 10 | 10 |
| NHL drafted | 2 | 4 | 3 |
| NHL drafted top 80 | 0 | 3 | 1 |
| Players 6 2 or over | 4 | 10 | 8 |
| Players 5 10 or under | 10 | 0 | 6 |
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