After eliminating the Everett Silvertips in four games in the second round of the WHL playoffs, Portland now sets off on the road to meet the Prince George Cougars in the WHL’s Western Conference Final.
For those that watched the four regular season games, this seemed like an inevitable matchup. Both teams spent long periods of the regular season leading the standings for the conference and it came down to one point over the last weekend of the year to determine who earned the top seed for playoffs.
The games hosted at Portland’s Veterans Memorial Coliseum and the CN Center in Prince George were heated affairs with the season series split with each team winning once and losing once on home ice.
Portland had home-ice advantage for the first two rounds of the playoffs but will now cede that to Prince George, who will host the opening two games of the series. Due to travel and building availability issues, the series will run a 2-3-2 format, meaning Portland will host games three and four, along with game five, barring a surprise sweep by one side, and then finish in Prince George for games six and seven.
It is expected to be a hostile crowd for Portland when they arrive, as Prince George sold out all of its seats in the second round and had to sell standing-room-only tickets to meet demand against the Kelowna Rockets.
Portland feels ready for the challenge as Winterhawks’ president, general manager, and head coach Mike Johnston said, “I think the Everett series presented that for us, they have great crowds, really good energy in their building. I think that helped prepare us for the Prince George series.”
As for the crowd’s impact on the players, defenseman Ryder Thompson said it could actually be a boost “I think it’s going to be fun. I think we are going to thrive off their energy and try to kill the crowd a little bit, be the villains.” He added that being able to silence a crowd on the road is “something that we look forward to, guys loving doing that in away barns.”
Looking at the matchup on the ice, both teams are similar in being highly skilled teams that like to move the puck fast and thrive in transition. This was a point of emphasis in practice on Tuesday, as one of the main drills during the brief 45-minute session was focused on pushing offense after a defensive stand and creating quick scoring chances.
When comparing the teams stylistically and asked if Portland may want to try and cycle the puck more to slow down the Cougars, Johnston said, “We’re going to stick with the style of game that we play, we’re a fast transition team. They have a lot of skill in their lineup, they have some high-end players. They play with pace and energy; they want to attack. I’ve stressed to our guys all year that yes, we want to be an up tempo team, but we have to be able to defend.”
One of the high-end players Johnston alluded to is Prince George’s leading scorer Riley Heidt, who was selected in the second round by the Minnesota Wild in this past summer’s NHL Entry Draft. Heidt is used in all situations by Cougars’ general manager and head coach Mark Lamb. He is their first-line center, runs the top powerplay, and is often the first center used on the penalty kill as well. He is flanked by WHL Rookie of the Year nominee Terik Parascak and Carlin Dezainde. For Portland defensively, slowing this line down has to be the top priority, and the line of Jack O’Brien, Nate Danielson, and Marcus Nguyen have been used in that shutdown role since the trade deadline.
This series will be the toughest assignment of the playoffs so far for the trio of Winterhawks. Danielson offered a two-pronged plan for winning those tough minutes. First defensively, he said, “They’re good players, they’re obviously super skilled and put the puck in the back of the net. I think we need to be hard on them, have good sticks, and little details like that go a long way.” He added that “The biggest thing is to try and play in the offensive zone and make them defend.”
Ryder Thompson, one of the team’s best shut-down defenders, also said, “Don’t let them wind up with time and space, be in their face. We have to keep them in front of us. They can be kind of sneaky and slip behind you, that’s how they generate some of their chances. Managing the puck is huge, too; we can’t let them get odd-man rushes.”
Offensively for Portland, the biggest challenge will be solving netminder Joshua Ravensbergen. The 17-year-old rookie goaltender has a knack for blanking opponents, leading the league in shutouts in both the regular season with six and playoffs with two in nine games. During the regular season, Portland was shut out by him in the first matchup but then found success afterward by focusing on having a strong net-front presence, sometimes involving two Portland forwards. Back in January, forward Josh Davies said the key was “getting pucks on net because he can be a little bit leaky with his rebounds. We wanted to drive to the net, get as many shots as we can.”
With a focus on putting in rebounds with net front forwards, some of those shots are going to come from the defensemen, and this can be a major area of strength for Portland. Of the four remaining teams in the WHL, Portland has generated the most offense from the blue line with 37 points, including every defender scoring at least one goal. For context, Prince George has 24, and in the east, Saskatoon has 32, while Moose Jaw has 29.
Having a defense core that can stress opponent’s defensive coverage and open up scoring chances for the forwards is a staple of Portland’s philosophy according to Thompson “It’s a system thing, we’re always getting that fourth guy in the rush, the defense is always active in the defensive zone. Everyone here is pretty offensive and can play two ways. Everyone has strengths to their offensive ability. I’m proud of the way the defense has been chipping in; it’s not just one guy.”
The final major challenge of the series is the schedule itself, with five games in seven nights to open. This will be a test of each team’s depth and conditioning to see who can have the freshest legs after fatigue sets in.
Johnston mentioned that they use the regular season to help prepare for a condensed schedule: “We’ve played a lot of three-in-threes this year. I always felt that three-in-threes condition you for playoffs because of the challenge of playing Friday, Saturday, (and) Sunday games. You’ve got to be able to handle it; it’s more mental than physical. Yes, there is a physical demand, but I find it’s more mentally pushing through it.”
Thompson felt the team was ready for the challenge “This is something we’ve prepared for the whole year, those hard workouts we’re doing, all those fitness testing, this is what you work for in the summer and training camp. I think every step of the way has been preparation for this. It’s been three years in the making to get to this point so we’re going to do everything we can to make the most of it.”
To get ahead of any travel fatigue, Portland loaded up the bus Tuesday morning after practice to make the approximately 13-hour drive to Prince George and will get a practice in on Thursday to loosen up the legs before puck drop Friday night.
