Post by DiamondThief on May 12, 2014 22:21:59 GMT -8
May 12 -- The Edmonton Oil Kings turned back the Portland Winterhawks in game 7 of their Western Hockey League finals series, 4-2, earning the league championship, four games to three.
The series was somewhat peculiar in that the teams each won a pair of home games and ended tied 2-2 after four games. From there, the visiting team won each of the three final games of the series.
From the Winterhawks Website:
From The Oregonian:
From the Edmonton Journal:
The series was somewhat peculiar in that the teams each won a pair of home games and ended tied 2-2 after four games. From there, the visiting team won each of the three final games of the series.
From the Winterhawks Website:
The Portland Winterhawks’ incredible season came to an end Monday as the Edmonton Oil Kings took Game 7 of the WHL Final 4-2 in front of a sold out crowd of 10,095 at Veterans Memorial Coliseum to claim the Ed Chynoweth Cup.
The Hawks struck first 4:42 into the game when Oliver Bjorkstrand led a rush up the ice and fired a shot that beat Edmonton netminder Tristan Jarry for a 1-0 lead Portland took into the second period.
Edmonton got on the board 3:50 into the second when Mitch Moroz scored to even the game at 1-1. They made it 2-1 when Curtis Lazar scored a shorthanded goal at the 9:02 mark, and made it a two-goal game when Reid Petryk scored 40 seconds later for a 3-1 lead. They added a goal from Mads Eller at the 17:17 mark to take a 4-1 lead into the third.
The Hawks came out in the final frame looking to replicate their three-goal comeback in Sunday’s Game 6. They outshot Edmonton 15-6 in the period, and finally broke through and got within two when Brendan Leipsic scored a power play goal at the 16:38 mark to cut it to 4-2. The Hawks kept pressing, but Jarry turned away each attempt as Edmonton finished with the 4-2 win to claim the Ed Chynoweth Cup as WHL champions.
Brendan Burke got the start in net for Portland and made 29 saves on 33 shots. Jarry finished with 32 saves on 34 Portland shots.
It was the third straight championship series between the two teams, as they played 20 of a possible 21 games over the three years.
The Hawks struck first 4:42 into the game when Oliver Bjorkstrand led a rush up the ice and fired a shot that beat Edmonton netminder Tristan Jarry for a 1-0 lead Portland took into the second period.
Edmonton got on the board 3:50 into the second when Mitch Moroz scored to even the game at 1-1. They made it 2-1 when Curtis Lazar scored a shorthanded goal at the 9:02 mark, and made it a two-goal game when Reid Petryk scored 40 seconds later for a 3-1 lead. They added a goal from Mads Eller at the 17:17 mark to take a 4-1 lead into the third.
The Hawks came out in the final frame looking to replicate their three-goal comeback in Sunday’s Game 6. They outshot Edmonton 15-6 in the period, and finally broke through and got within two when Brendan Leipsic scored a power play goal at the 16:38 mark to cut it to 4-2. The Hawks kept pressing, but Jarry turned away each attempt as Edmonton finished with the 4-2 win to claim the Ed Chynoweth Cup as WHL champions.
Brendan Burke got the start in net for Portland and made 29 saves on 33 shots. Jarry finished with 32 saves on 34 Portland shots.
It was the third straight championship series between the two teams, as they played 20 of a possible 21 games over the three years.
The Portland Winterhawks had momentum, an arena stuffed to the rafters with fans and a 1-0 lead, but couldn’t close the deal in a 4-2 loss against the Edmonton Oil Kings in Game 7 of the Western Hockey League finals Monday night.
“There’s a lot of tears (in the locker room). I talked to the guys but I don’t think they heard anything I said,” Mike Johnston, Portland’s coach and general manager said. “We’re that close to a championship and you work so hard for it. And you know it was right there, and it was just stolen away from us.”
The loss ends the Portland season and puts the Oil Kings into the Memorial Cup tournament, major junior hockey’s top prize, for the second time in three seasons. The tournament starts Friday in London, Ontario.
The Hawks started Game 7 playing with the energy, the jump and the tempo that’s been their trademark for at least the last three seasons.
Edmonton responded hit for hit, stride for stride and won the battle of structure over speed.
The Hawks staked their claim for the WHL’s berth in the cup tournament when they forced the seventh and deciding game with a dramatic come-from-behind victory Sunday night in Edmonton.
In Edmonton, Portland overcame 3-goal leads twice and tied the game in regulation before deflating the sold-out crowd at Rexall Place with an overtime goal.
Just more than 24 hours later, back at Portland’s Veterans Memorial Coliseum, the sold-out crowd of 10,095 was set for more speed, more pinpoint passing, more goals and one more win.
But it didn’t happen.
Oliver Bjorkstrand gave Portland a 1-0 lead at 4 minutes, 42 seconds in the first period with a wrister past Edmonton goaltender Tristan Jarry. That goal broke a scoring drought by Bjorkstrand that extended all the way back to Game 4 of the series against Kelowna.
Later in the first period, an apparent power-play goal from Edmonton’s Curtis Lazar was waved off after a review showed he kicked the puck past Portland goaltender Brendan Burke.
So, with a goal and a big break, the puck was bouncing Portland’s way.
Then it stopped.
The Hawks gave up four goals, scored by four different Edmonton players, in the second period: Mitch Moroz, Curtis Lazar, Reid Petryk and Mads Eller.
Portland’s crisp passing evaporated. There were uncharacteristic turnovers. Players fell down, opening the door to odd-man rushes that crashed like waves in Burke’s crease.
Portland finished 1-for-5 on the power play and didn’t convert until their fifth, late in the third period. In the second, with the man advantage, Hawks defenseman Mathew Dumba caught and edge and fell down. Edmonton’s Lazar swooped in for his goal, short-handed.
“They got the first goal, and I thought the shorthanded one was a key turning point,” Johnston said. “Seemed like there was just a sequence of odd things happening.
“Mat Dumba went to center ice and fell down,” he continued. “The two goals back-to-back around the nine-minute mark were ones that really stung us. They put us back on our heels a little bit. We just couldn’t recover in the third.”
In the third, the Hawks had an apparent goal waved off. the puck was bouncing behind Jarry’s net when Nic Petan and Brendan Leipsic both hacked at it, and it looked initially like the puck got through. After review — no goal.
With a little more than five minutes remaining, the Hawks’ Paul Bittner had a breakaway but was stoned by Jarry.
With 3:22 remaining in their season, Leipsic gave the fans one last reason to cheer when he scored on a 6-on-4 power play after Burke was pulled and Jarry took a penalty for interference.
Burke finished with 29 saves on 33 shots; Jarry saved 32 of 34 shots.
“It’s tough the way we came back last game, and we thought we had an edge tonight,” Leipsic said. “And we came up short.”
Portland finished the regular season 54-13-2-3 (113 points) and set a franchise record in consecutive wins with 21 in a row.
The Hawks steamrolled through the second half of the season, losing just once after January 11. The push was sustained into the playoffs, with Portland defeating Vancouver in four games and Victoria and Kelowna in five games before running up against Edmonton.
The Hawks and the Oil Kings have met in the league final in each of the last three seasons. Two years ago, Edmonton won in seven games; the Hawks won last season in six games.
“All the guys are pretty emotional,” Hawks captain Taylor Leier said. “We thought we could win this year and we came up short.”
“There’s a lot of tears (in the locker room). I talked to the guys but I don’t think they heard anything I said,” Mike Johnston, Portland’s coach and general manager said. “We’re that close to a championship and you work so hard for it. And you know it was right there, and it was just stolen away from us.”
The loss ends the Portland season and puts the Oil Kings into the Memorial Cup tournament, major junior hockey’s top prize, for the second time in three seasons. The tournament starts Friday in London, Ontario.
The Hawks started Game 7 playing with the energy, the jump and the tempo that’s been their trademark for at least the last three seasons.
Edmonton responded hit for hit, stride for stride and won the battle of structure over speed.
The Hawks staked their claim for the WHL’s berth in the cup tournament when they forced the seventh and deciding game with a dramatic come-from-behind victory Sunday night in Edmonton.
In Edmonton, Portland overcame 3-goal leads twice and tied the game in regulation before deflating the sold-out crowd at Rexall Place with an overtime goal.
Just more than 24 hours later, back at Portland’s Veterans Memorial Coliseum, the sold-out crowd of 10,095 was set for more speed, more pinpoint passing, more goals and one more win.
But it didn’t happen.
Oliver Bjorkstrand gave Portland a 1-0 lead at 4 minutes, 42 seconds in the first period with a wrister past Edmonton goaltender Tristan Jarry. That goal broke a scoring drought by Bjorkstrand that extended all the way back to Game 4 of the series against Kelowna.
Later in the first period, an apparent power-play goal from Edmonton’s Curtis Lazar was waved off after a review showed he kicked the puck past Portland goaltender Brendan Burke.
So, with a goal and a big break, the puck was bouncing Portland’s way.
Then it stopped.
The Hawks gave up four goals, scored by four different Edmonton players, in the second period: Mitch Moroz, Curtis Lazar, Reid Petryk and Mads Eller.
Portland’s crisp passing evaporated. There were uncharacteristic turnovers. Players fell down, opening the door to odd-man rushes that crashed like waves in Burke’s crease.
Portland finished 1-for-5 on the power play and didn’t convert until their fifth, late in the third period. In the second, with the man advantage, Hawks defenseman Mathew Dumba caught and edge and fell down. Edmonton’s Lazar swooped in for his goal, short-handed.
“They got the first goal, and I thought the shorthanded one was a key turning point,” Johnston said. “Seemed like there was just a sequence of odd things happening.
“Mat Dumba went to center ice and fell down,” he continued. “The two goals back-to-back around the nine-minute mark were ones that really stung us. They put us back on our heels a little bit. We just couldn’t recover in the third.”
In the third, the Hawks had an apparent goal waved off. the puck was bouncing behind Jarry’s net when Nic Petan and Brendan Leipsic both hacked at it, and it looked initially like the puck got through. After review — no goal.
With a little more than five minutes remaining, the Hawks’ Paul Bittner had a breakaway but was stoned by Jarry.
With 3:22 remaining in their season, Leipsic gave the fans one last reason to cheer when he scored on a 6-on-4 power play after Burke was pulled and Jarry took a penalty for interference.
Burke finished with 29 saves on 33 shots; Jarry saved 32 of 34 shots.
“It’s tough the way we came back last game, and we thought we had an edge tonight,” Leipsic said. “And we came up short.”
Portland finished the regular season 54-13-2-3 (113 points) and set a franchise record in consecutive wins with 21 in a row.
The Hawks steamrolled through the second half of the season, losing just once after January 11. The push was sustained into the playoffs, with Portland defeating Vancouver in four games and Victoria and Kelowna in five games before running up against Edmonton.
The Hawks and the Oil Kings have met in the league final in each of the last three seasons. Two years ago, Edmonton won in seven games; the Hawks won last season in six games.
“All the guys are pretty emotional,” Hawks captain Taylor Leier said. “We thought we could win this year and we came up short.”
PORTLAND, Ore. — When the Western Hockey League season started, the Edmonton Oil Kings’ marketing team made “Take it back” their slogan. The goal this year was to regain the WHL championship, but the organization had no idea how prescient the saying would be in the league final this year.
Monday night’s 4-2 win over the Portland Winterhawks allowed the Oil Kings to take back the Ed Chynoweth Cup after winning it two years ago. Within this one series, though, the team took back a 0-2 deficit; it took back a two-goal Game 3 deficit, and after letting a pair of three-goal leads slip by in the third period en route to Game 6 overtime loss, they took momentum back one final time, holding that three-goal lead and learning their painful lesson from the night before.
Call it a classic, call it epic, call it the least predictable series of hockey you might ever see. Seven games later, it’s the Edmonton Oil Kings’ zigzagging, heart racing, one-of-a-kind journey to the Memorial Cup.
Mitch Moroz, Curtis Lazar, Reid Petryk and Mads Eller scored for the Oil Kings, with Tristan Jarry making 32 saves in the win.
Oliver Bjorkstrand and Brandan Leipsic scored for Portland. Brendan Burke made 29 saves in the loss.
This marked the league’s 11th all-time Game 7. The road team was winless in the previous 10, with the Oil Kings making history at Portland’s Memorial Coliseum.
Bjorkstrand’s first goal of the series came in the game that his team needed him the most. The Danish forward flicked the puck high over Jarry at 4:42, drawing an eruption out of a crowd that was ready to burst from the second the puck dropped.
The Oil Kings weren’t daunted by the early deficit. With Alex Schoenborn in the box for interference, Lazar appeared to have found the equalizer at 8:33. The goal went to review, though, and was overturned.
The Portland crowd treated the ruling like a home-team goal, but the Oil Kings again kept their composure. Shots were close in the opening frame, with Portland holding a 14-12 edge and the Oil Kings tried to make up the difference with physical play.
Reid Petryk and Brandon Baddock followed Eller’s hyper-aggressive lead, but the refs grew tired of it and whistled Baddock for hooking in the final seconds of the period.
The Winterhawks’ power play wouldn’t matter. The second period was one of Edmonton dominance.
First, Moroz evened the game up on a gritty effort. The Oilers prospect worked his way up the wall, pushing the puck with one hand on his stick. A touch pass in front from Edgars Kulda went back to Moroz, who sent his shot five-hole past Burke at 3:50.
The Oil Kings took the lead at 9:02 on the penalty kill with a huge play from their big-game player and some grease from one of their dangerous cogs. Eller almost stole a pass earlier in the same kill for a breakaway but couldn’t contain the puck. He led the rush with Lazar and fed him on Burke’s glove hand side, where Lazar made the short-handed goal look easy.
They seized control of the game just 40 seconds later, when Petryk caught the Portland defence on the rush and got a good look at Burke, losing the goalie on his backhand, with the puck creeping in under his leg for a two-goal edge. For the first time on Monday night, the Coliseum fell silent.
Eller got a goal for his efforts at 17:17 of the second, when Portland d-man and Game 6 hero Mat Dumba blew a tire in the neutral zone and lost the puck. Eller finished Luke Bertolucci and Cody Corbett’s setup to restore the three-goal lead that the Oil Kings held twice in their Game 6 loss, while holding Portland to just five shots in the period.
Eller continued to push in the third period, earning a short-handed breakaway at 2:11. His rebound stab at the puck was almost across the line before Game 6 hero Keegan Iverson wiped it out of harm’s way. Portland wasn’t as lucky at 7:02, having what they thought was a goal lost to review.
In the waning minutes of the game, Portland finally struck on the power play. Leipsic struck at 16:38, bringing the fans back into it. With Burke on the bench, the Winterhawks raced against the clock to even the score. But Jarry demonstrated the goalie that he is and what he’s become in these finals, stopping the hosts the rest of the way.
The Oil Kings leave for the Memorial Cup on Wednesday.
Monday night’s 4-2 win over the Portland Winterhawks allowed the Oil Kings to take back the Ed Chynoweth Cup after winning it two years ago. Within this one series, though, the team took back a 0-2 deficit; it took back a two-goal Game 3 deficit, and after letting a pair of three-goal leads slip by in the third period en route to Game 6 overtime loss, they took momentum back one final time, holding that three-goal lead and learning their painful lesson from the night before.
Call it a classic, call it epic, call it the least predictable series of hockey you might ever see. Seven games later, it’s the Edmonton Oil Kings’ zigzagging, heart racing, one-of-a-kind journey to the Memorial Cup.
Mitch Moroz, Curtis Lazar, Reid Petryk and Mads Eller scored for the Oil Kings, with Tristan Jarry making 32 saves in the win.
Oliver Bjorkstrand and Brandan Leipsic scored for Portland. Brendan Burke made 29 saves in the loss.
This marked the league’s 11th all-time Game 7. The road team was winless in the previous 10, with the Oil Kings making history at Portland’s Memorial Coliseum.
Bjorkstrand’s first goal of the series came in the game that his team needed him the most. The Danish forward flicked the puck high over Jarry at 4:42, drawing an eruption out of a crowd that was ready to burst from the second the puck dropped.
The Oil Kings weren’t daunted by the early deficit. With Alex Schoenborn in the box for interference, Lazar appeared to have found the equalizer at 8:33. The goal went to review, though, and was overturned.
The Portland crowd treated the ruling like a home-team goal, but the Oil Kings again kept their composure. Shots were close in the opening frame, with Portland holding a 14-12 edge and the Oil Kings tried to make up the difference with physical play.
Reid Petryk and Brandon Baddock followed Eller’s hyper-aggressive lead, but the refs grew tired of it and whistled Baddock for hooking in the final seconds of the period.
The Winterhawks’ power play wouldn’t matter. The second period was one of Edmonton dominance.
First, Moroz evened the game up on a gritty effort. The Oilers prospect worked his way up the wall, pushing the puck with one hand on his stick. A touch pass in front from Edgars Kulda went back to Moroz, who sent his shot five-hole past Burke at 3:50.
The Oil Kings took the lead at 9:02 on the penalty kill with a huge play from their big-game player and some grease from one of their dangerous cogs. Eller almost stole a pass earlier in the same kill for a breakaway but couldn’t contain the puck. He led the rush with Lazar and fed him on Burke’s glove hand side, where Lazar made the short-handed goal look easy.
They seized control of the game just 40 seconds later, when Petryk caught the Portland defence on the rush and got a good look at Burke, losing the goalie on his backhand, with the puck creeping in under his leg for a two-goal edge. For the first time on Monday night, the Coliseum fell silent.
Eller got a goal for his efforts at 17:17 of the second, when Portland d-man and Game 6 hero Mat Dumba blew a tire in the neutral zone and lost the puck. Eller finished Luke Bertolucci and Cody Corbett’s setup to restore the three-goal lead that the Oil Kings held twice in their Game 6 loss, while holding Portland to just five shots in the period.
Eller continued to push in the third period, earning a short-handed breakaway at 2:11. His rebound stab at the puck was almost across the line before Game 6 hero Keegan Iverson wiped it out of harm’s way. Portland wasn’t as lucky at 7:02, having what they thought was a goal lost to review.
In the waning minutes of the game, Portland finally struck on the power play. Leipsic struck at 16:38, bringing the fans back into it. With Burke on the bench, the Winterhawks raced against the clock to even the score. But Jarry demonstrated the goalie that he is and what he’s become in these finals, stopping the hosts the rest of the way.
The Oil Kings leave for the Memorial Cup on Wednesday.