Even-Record Winterhawks Looking Ahead
Well, it’s been an enlightening week for Portland hockey. Let’s all take a moment to pledge allegiance to a .500 record for the first time this season, and then we had better take a look at how the Hawks have evened out the wrinkles.
The team has beaten the best team in the WHL three times in a row now, with back-to-back wins in Kelowna on last Friday and Saturday, and another back at the beginning of November. Just to put this in perspective, the Rockets have only lost five games total this season. Along with their 1 sound victory and 1 heartbreaker shootout loss with Everett, this is starting to look more like the team chanting “Back-to-back-to-back-to-back” and “Five in five” back in September.
[quote align=’right’]I suppose it’s possible that the rebuilding year everyone expected turned into a rebuilding month.[/quote]I suppose it’s possible that the rebuilding year everyone expected turned into a rebuilding month. For starters, the goalie situation has finally subsided, and lately on the right side of the coin. Brendan Burke was replaced after about 20 minutes by Adin Hill in that Friday game in Kelowna, and Hill proceeded to transform into a brick wall. He has 3 wins in a row in-net now (starting for the last two games), and a 91% save average for his season. Those are the numbers the Winterhawks have needed in between the posts, and it would not surprise anyone if Hill became the go-to goalie for the big, important games going into the back half of the season.
Meanwhile, the offense has moved past the early-in-the-season compulsion to outshine each other for Coach’s approval, and are starting to play a balanced game with successful cross-ice passes and odd-man rushes keeping the opposition flinching. Chase De Leo has 6 points in the goal column and 4 in the assist column for November so far, and can always be relied upon to be a playmaker if not a scorer. Similarly, Alex Schoenborn has come alive as one of the chief participants in four of the seven victories for November, with 5 goals and 4 assists. And then there’s Oliver Bjorkstrand, who currently has a seven-game point streak adding up to a fantastic 30 points for the season, split right down the middle with 15 goals and 15 assists. Now that is professional-grade hockey.
Nic Petan was named Captain of the team this year, and you can tell he’s taking that title seriously. It’s become a clichéd factoid, but Gretzky was deemed The Great One not because he had 894 goals in his career, but because he had those and more than double that number in assists (1,963 to be dorky about it). Petan has miles and miles of ice to go before we can fairly compare him to any NHL player, let alone that one, but he’s demonstrating that same leadership quality with 11 assists this month, and 21 for the season total.
With the disappointing performances from October still haunting the Hawks, this has been a very productive few weeks. Step two is building momentum into a standard to adhere to. The season is still young, and Portland fans will just have to trust that the worst is behind us.
