The opening round of the WHL playoffs is set, and the Portland Winterhawks are matched up against the Prince George Cougars. Last year these two teams met in the Western Conference Finals, where Portland won game six in Prince George to advance to the WHL Championship. This year, the Winterhawks went 4-0 against the Cougars in regular season play. The last time these two teams met was on December 13th, where Portland would win 4-1 in Veterans Memorial Coliseum. Prince George has home ice advantage for this best of seven series, as they are the #4 seed in the Western Conference. Both times the Winterhawks played in Prince George this season, the games required extra time to find a winner. Here are three key storylines to follow as the these teams gear up for the postseason.
Special teams could make or break this series. Portland and Prince George are two of the more penalized teams in the WHL. The Winterhawks rank 8th in total penalty minutes this season, while the Cougars are in 4th. On the power-play, Portland has a slight advantage over Prince George this season. The Winterhawks have converted on 24.4% of their power-plays this year, which is 2.1% better than Prince George’s man advantage unit. However, the Cougars have shown to be significantly stronger on the penalty-kill. With a 79.1% success rate, Prince George’s man down unit ranks 6th best in the league. Against each other, neither team was able to find much success on the power play. Across all four regular season matchups, Prince George went 1/16 on the power play, and Portland went 1/19. If either team’s man advantage units catches fire, it could mean the end of the line for their opponents.
Koehn Ziemmer was Prince George’s top performer against Portland in the regular season. Although Ziemmer only played in three of the four games against the Winterhawks this year, Ziemmer still tallied 3 goals and 1 assist across those three games. Ziemmer now leads the Cougars in goals this year with 37, and has the 5th most points on the team with a total of 71. The Los Angeles Kings prospect was also effective for Prince George in last year’s playoff run. Ziemmer had 10 points in the Cougars 15 playoff games last year.
One player to watch for Portland this series is Deigo Buttazzoni. Over the four games against Prince George, Buttazzoni scored two impactful goals. The first was a game winning goal in overtime in Prince George. The second goal was on the power-play, which helped spark a four goal comeback win for the Winterhawks. That same game, Buttazzoni also scored a shootout goal against Cougars starting goaltender, Joshua Ravensbergen. Buttazzoni also had two assists against Prince George in their final regular season meeting. Lastly, Buttazzoni has been a massive part of the Winterhawks success on the power-play. The Langley, BC native has 16 power-play goals this year, which is tied for the 2nd most in the league. If Buttazzoni can get the power-play rolling for Portland, this could be a quick series for the Winterhawks.
Game 1 of this playoff series starts Friday, March 28. Puck drop will be at 7:00 p.m. at the CN Centre in Prince George, BC. The Winterhawks first home game of this year’s playoffs will be on April 1, at 7:00 p.m.
Northwest Sports Desk 