BLOG: Winterhawks outwork Silvertips to take 1-0 series lead

Rarely does an opposing team outwork the Everett Silvertips in the opening period, but that is what happened Friday. You combine that with the Portland Winterhawks’ impressive skill and the result was a 5-2 Portland win in Game 1 of the WHL Western Conference semifinals.

“They came out and wanted it more than us,” Everett head coach Dennis Williams said. “Their depth players outworked our depth players in the game and it was hard to get things going.”

Indeed, Portland’s depth players scored the Winterhawks’ first three goals as they built a 3-0 lead. Portland fired off 17 first-period shots to Everett’s nine and never trailed in the game.

It’s hard to emphasize the magnitude of Portland’s fourth goal. Everett’s Sean Richards had made it 3-2 at 18:53 in the second period and the Tips were buzzing. With 17 seconds to go in the period Matt Fonteyne won the faceoff and Patrick Bajkov appeared to have a look from the slot.

Instead Portland regained possession, and Kieffer Bellows took off down the ice with Skyler McKenzie, who finished past Carter Hart for Portland’s fourth goal with 1.1 seconds to go on the clock.

The Tips went from a potential tie to a two-goal deficit heading into the final period.

🎥 WHL Highlight of the Night 🎥
April 6, 2018@NHLJets prospect @S_Mckenzie19 of the @pdxwinterhawks#WHLHoN #WHLPlayoffs pic.twitter.com/XoXcCbMQQz

— The WHL (@TheWHL) April 7, 2018

“We have to manage pucks in the first minutes and last minutes of periods,” Fonteyne said. “They’re a team that kind of feeds off turnovers and really get on the attack.”

The Tips also need regain the physical edge they had in the 4-1 series victory over Seattle in the first round.

“I thought we got away from finishing our checks,” Williams said. “If we don’t you can see how quickly they can get up the ice. We played that way against Seattle, and I thought we didn’t really play with enough grit. What you want to do is eliminate time and space with (the Winterhawks).”

Hart also surrendered five goals for the second time this postseason. Unlike Game 2 against Seattle, none of Portland’s goals came on the man advantage or in overtime.

The first two came on close rebounds in the slot that Portland players buried by crashing the net. The third was a wrister through traffic, and the fourth came off the aforementioned Bellows-McKenzie rush. The final goal came on a tough-angle finish by Cody Glass.

I asked Williams if Hart needed to play better if the Tips are going to win this series and Williams demurred:

“We’re not a (one-guy team),” he said. “We scored two goals. You’re not going to win a lot of games scoring two goals either. We definitely need to re-look at the whole landscape of it. It’s not time to hit the panic button or anything, but we do have to survey (everything). Like I told the guys, they gotta go home tonight and really look at themselves in the mirror and decide whether or not they want to get right back in the series… We gotta wake up tomorrow and learn from it, hit the reset button and get back to work.”

That “reset” mentality has been a mantra for the Tips all season long in times both good and bad. We’ll see if they can hit the button and even the series tonight.

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