Winterhawks face Rockets in conference semis

Nino Niederreiter scored 10 points during Portland's series with Everett.

Photo by Dave Giezyng.

The Portland Winterhawks head into the semifinals of the Western Hockey League playoffs Thursday against the Kelowna Rockets, the league announced Sunday.

Portland, the top seed in the West, has the home-ice edge and will meet the B.C. Division winners at 7 p.m. at the Rose Garden after beating Everett 4-0 in its first-round series.

Kelowna beat Prince George 4-0 in its first-round series.

Portland finished the regular season at 50-19-0-3, 103 points, while Kelowna finished 43-28-0-1, 87 points. Portland won three of four games with the Rockets during the regular season.

Game 2 is set for Sunday at 5 p.m., also at the Rose Garden.

Tri-City and Spokane face off in the other conference semifinal.

The semifinals in the Eastern Conference have yet to be set as one series has reached a sixth game.

WHL WESTERN CONFERENCE PLAYOFFS

QUARTERFINALS

PORTLAND 4, EVERETT 0

After finishing the regular season with a 9-1 edge in games against the Silvertips, the Hawks cruised through four games to move into the conference semifinals.

Portland scored three times in the opening 10 minutes and trailed just twice in the series. The Hawks won Game 1, 5-0; Game 2, 7-2; Game 3, 5-4; and Game 4, 6-2.

Nino Niederreitter scored 10 points, putting him tied for the league lead for points in a first-round series.

HAWKS HEAD FOR PLAYOFFS WITH PLENTY OF CONFIDENCE

The Portland Winterhawks, champions of the Western Conference during the regular season, begin their assault on the same notation, only during the playoff season Saturday night when they play host to the Everett Silvertips in the first round of the Western Hockey League playoffs.

In the playoffs, though, the Hawks have two extra rounds they can play into past the Western Conference - the WHL final, and the Memorial Cup.

The game begins at 7 p.m. at the Rose Garden.

The Hawks posted the Western Conference's best record (50-19-0-3, 103 points) and are the top seed in the playoffs, giving them home-ice advantage in every playoff series - all of which are best-of-seven. Portland finished as one of the hottest teams in the league with eight wins in its final 10 games.

Everett enters the playoffs having gone 28-33-7-4, 67 points, during the regular season, but finished 1-7-2-0 in its final 10 games.

Portland beat Everett in nine of the 10 meetings between the teams this season.

HAWKS 4, EVERETT 3, Friday, March 18

By Jeremy Lloyd, oregonsports.com

Either you’re first, or you’re third. Sounds like something Ricky Bobby might say in the movie “Talladega Nights,” doesn’t it? But with just two games remaining in the WHL regular season, that’s exactly the scenario the Portland Winterhawks face after squeaking by the Everett Silvertips by a score of 4-3 Friday in an exciting and splendidly violent affair at the Rose Garden.

Nino Niederreiter scored two goals for the Hawks, including the game winner, while Riley Boychuk and Sven Bartschi also found the back of the net for the home team.

Portland, which currently maintains a razor thin one-point lead over the Spokane Chiefs in the U.S. Division of the WHL’s Western Conference, will travel to Seattle Saturday and then host Spokane Sunday at home in what could possibly be a winner-takes-all matchup for first place in the conference. Kelowna, which already wrapped up the B.C. Division, is guaranteed the number two seed in the conference, which means the Hawks will finish either first or third. Spokane, for their part, kept the drama alive by knocking off Seattle 5-0.

Heading into the third period down 3-2, however, Portland’s tenuous first place status was on thin ice. Bartschi knotted the score at 3-3 on a rebound goal at the 18:18 mark of the period, and Portland withstood back-to-back Everett power plays to set up a furious finish to a game that was too important for the Winterhawks to lose.

“They had a chance to take the lead, but we had great penalty kills, and that changed the momentum big time for us,” said Boychuck after the game.

Following over 15 minutes of nail-biting scoreless hockey as the tension built with the dwindling game clock, Niederreiter flicked in a wide open shot from the left corner with just 3:08 remaining that would turn out to be the game winner. The Silvertips would mount a desperate attack in the final minutes in an attempt to tie it up, but Portland goalie Marc Carruth stood his ground and made several impressive saves to seal the deal.

"It was a play that we had run a lot during the season," said Niederreiter of his game winning goal. "I had a clear shot at the net, and I was able to make it."

Things got chippy from the moment the first puck dropped, as the Silvertips clearly weren’t content to be just another speed bump on the Winterhawks’ road to a top seed in the Western Conference playoffs. Two first period skirmishes were quickly squashed by the refs, but a third resulted in a Mike Tyson-style one-punch knockout when Boychuk laid out Everett’s Ryan Harrison flat on the ice.

“I like to crash and bang," admitted Boychuck. "A more physical type of game is my game.”

As would be expected, that physical play led to a good deal of four-on-four hockey early on thanks to a laundry list of penalties, but surprisingly none of it resulted in a score, as neither team could find the back of the net despite a combined 19 shots on goal, 14 of which came from the Hawks.

The second period featured considerably less violence but more scoring, as Everett jumped out to a 3-2 lead despite getting only 16 shots on goal for the game thus far compared to Portland’s 33. Brennan Yadlowski broke the scoring seal for the Silvertips with a power play goal at the 18:04 mark, then Ryan Murray put Everett up 2-0 with a breakaway one-on-one score with 13:20 showing on the clock. The Winterhawks would respond less than 14 seconds later, as Boychuck showed that his hand hadn’t been too badly damaged on Harrison’s face by finding the back of the net in traffic to make it 2-1. Niederreiter slipped another one past Everett goalie Andy Desautels at the 7:40 mark to square up the score at 2-2, but Chad Suer’s 20-foot prayer was tipped into the net by Josh Birkholz to give the Silvertips a one goal advantage and put Portland’s tenuous division lead in peril heading into the final period.

Portland will face off with Seattle Saturday night at 7:05 pm, followed by the much-anticipated season-ending bout with Spokane Sunday at 5:00 pm at the Rose Garden.