1 week Ago By Dylan Bumbarger
The Portland Winterhawks almost pull another miracle comeback, coming from 3-0 down in the 3rd period to tie the Tri-City Americans in Kennewick. But a couple of bad bounces lead to a Jake Sloan goal that sinks them as the Americans win 4-3. It’s Portland’s 5th loss in a row.
Three were one-goal games, two of those in overtime, and they played a decent game in another. So they’ve had an unlucky stretch, following a fairly lucky stretch. It will probably lead to an adjustment in their goalie depth chart, as starter Ondrej Štěbeták struggled again, and Marek Schlenker came in relief and almost stole two points for the Winterhawks.
Game preview Game thread with game updates and postgame reaction. The off day forum Pregame: Portland in on a 4-game losing streak, Tri-City on a 3-game winning streak. Tri-City being at home was the fresher team.
1st period: Low event period in the first half. Then the Ams struck late on a power play goal and a Portland turnover in their own zone to go up 2-0. 2nd period: A poor goal by Ondrej Štěbeták ended his night, with it 3-0 Tri-City.
Marek Schlenker came in and turned the game around, stopping a number of good Americans chances to prevent it from getting worse than 3-0. At the time it didn’t seem like it would matter, as Portland got some shots but didn’t look too threatening. 3rd period: Then the Winterhawks made another comeback.
Their goals for-against is now 23-8; their +15 is best in the league. A hard work goal got them on the board, then they converted two power plays to make it 3-3. Schlenker and Lukas Matecha played well from there to send it to overtime.
Overtime: Tri-City never let Portland touch the puck, then Jordan Gavin made a great play and the pinball favored the Ams to send the fans home happy. How it was won: 1. In a battle of two slow-starting teams, Tri-City won the start.
Helped by more struggles from Winterhawks goalie Ondrej Štěbeták. 2. Good performances from some TC players who’d started the season slow.
Jake Sloan, Lukas Matecha, Jordan Gavin, and Max Curran didn’t have giant games but all made contributions. Key stretch/moment: 33 seconds of overtime? Surprising: The Ams led after 1 period for the first time this season. Maybe not too surprising, since Portland is worse at starting games.
Not surprising: The power play for Portland almost pulled another game out with 2 goals in the 3rd. That’s 10 goals in the last 5 games now. On the other hand, their league-worst even-strength numbers get worse.
Best team won?: 50-50 game. Injuries/suspensions: Kyle McDonough missed with an injury suffered Saturday. Diego Buttazzoni served the last of his 3-game suspension.
Once again, it was a big loss. Portland Winterhawks Not playing terribly, not getting the results. Just have to keep grinding.
Tri-City Americans 4 wins in a row, and they’re beating teams they need to beat to guarantee making the playoffs. They’ll be happy about getting contributions from the usual top players. Saturday vs.
Edmonton, 6pm PDT Sunday vs. Everett, 4pm PDT Next road game: Friday 11/1 at Spokane, 7pm PDT Looking ahead: Saturday 11/9 at Wenatchee, 6pm PST Next game with Tri-City: Friday 12/27 vs. Tri-City, 7pm PST.
