Team lights up the Rose Garden for eighth straight win
Things could not have started much worse for the Portland Winterhawks Saturday night. Within the first 10 minutes of their game against the Victoria Royals, the Hawks were down 2-0 and lost a fight to boot. Jamie Crooks and Alex Gogolev scored for the Royals early, while Keegan Kanzig leveraged all of his 238 pounds into his fist to pummel Winterhawk Joe Mahon at mid-ice. For the remaining 50 minutes, however, the Hawks were as offensive as the logo on their jerseys.
Karl Kuchs/VANGUARD STAFf
Lighting it up: Brendan Leipsic scores against the Victoria Royals on Saturday. The Winters overcame a slow start to cruise to a 6-2 victory.
By the middle of the first period, the Western Hockey League’s hottest team caught fire with a goal from Keegan Iverson. They went on to score five more unanswered goals as 10 different Winterhawks contributed points to the effort. Derrick Pouliot (the eighth overall pick in the 2012 NHL draft), Brendan Leipsic, captain Troy Rutkowski and Nicolas Petan each tallied three points.
Petan’s two assists increased his total to 19 this season, ranking him third in the WHL. He also leads the league in plus/minus at +23, a statistic calculated by subtracting the goals against a team from the goals for a team when a certain player is on the ice. This stat excludes power play goals, and it means Petan is playing out of his mind.
After the rough start, Winterhawk goalie Mac Carruth recovered to save 30 of the 32 shots that came his way. Saturday’s victory was Carruth’s 92nd with the Hawks, second-most in franchise history. Ty Rattie notched the game-tying goal in the second period and extended his scoring streak to 10 games. During their eight-game winning streak, the Hawks have outscored opponents 44-12, and they currently sit atop the WHL’s U.S. Division with a 12-3-1-0 record.
The WHL, the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League and the Ontario Hockey League, come together to form the Canadian Hockey League. Elite NHL prospects, usually between 16 and 20 years old, call the collective home, and eight of the top 10 picks in the 2012 NHL draft currently play in the CHL. Pouliot, Rattie and Tyler Wotherspoon will travel to Victoria, British Columbia on Nov. 15 to play for the WHL selects team in the 2012 Subway Super Series against Russia’s junior national team.
The Winterhawks play some of their home games at the Rose Garden and some next door at the Veterans Memorial Coliseum. Their next home game is at the coliseum on Sunday, Nov. 11, at 5 p.m. They’ll face the Kamloops Blazers, who lead the B.C. Division with a record of 17-1-0-1.
May the clash of the WHL titans commence.
