GAME RECAP
Winterhawks 4, Ice 3 (OT)
Series: Portland leads best-of-7 1-0. Game 2 is 7 p.m. today at the Rose Garden.
Player of the game: Ty Rattie scored the game-winner in overtime and set up the game’s first goal.
PORTLAND — It’s a basic bit of hockey wisdom: Shoot the puck.
In the opening minute of overtime on Friday, Craig Cunningham did just that. As a result, the Portland Winterhawks scored the first win of the Western Hockey League finals.
Ty Rattie re-directed the puck, and it trickled between the legs of Kootenay Ice goalie Nathan Lieuwen to give the Winterhawks a 4-3 win in Game 1 at the Rose Garden.
The winning goal was scored 55 seconds into overtime with the Winterhawks nearing the end of a power play. Cunningham skated from the half wall and took a shot from the left faceoff circle.
“I just had my stick on the ice,” said Rattie, who didn’t see the puck. “It was a shot-pass kind of thing that we work on in practice, and it worked in Game 1 OT.”
The goal ended Kootenay’s 11-game playoff winning streak, and gave Portland the first of four wins needed to lift the Ed Chynoweth Cup.
Game 2 is at 7 p.m. today in the Rose Garden.
“It was a big win, to be honest, for our club. It was an important win,” Portland coach Mike Johnston said, noting that the Winterhawks lost Game 1 in each of the previous two playoff series.
A crowd of 7,595 saw Friday’s contest, which started with a frenzy of action, including 39 timely saves from Portland goalie Mac Carruth, and ended with a tense conclusion.
Sven Bartschi scored two first-period goals, and Nino Niederreiter converted three seconds from the end of the first period to give the Winterhawks a 3-2 lead 20 minutes into the game.
Bartschi opened the scoring 2:06 into the game, beating Lieuwen with a wrister from the fight faceoff dot. That opportunity developed when Rattie chipped the puck past Brayden McNabb along the boards.
Bartschi’s second goal made it 2-1 Portland 12:51 into the game. It was a slam dunk into an open goal at the end of a dominating possession.
Lieuwen, who had 30 saves in the game, made three strong stops, two against Johansen, before quick passes from Troy Rutkowski to Johansen to Bartschi produced the goal.
The Ice answered each of those with goals by defenseman Hayden Rintoul and Joe Antilla. It seemed the first period would end in a tie. But Niederreiter took a shot from the right circle that bounced off Lieuwen to Niederreiter’s feet and he back-handed the puck into the net 3.7 seconds from the end of the period.
“We looked like a team that hadn’t played in nine days that first period,” Kootenay coach Kris Knoblauch said. “As the game went along, I thought we were a lot better.”
Play settled down in a scoreless second period, with each team seeming to get more organized with their defensive assignments, and both goalies playing well.
“The first period, you saw energy, emotion and excitement,” Johnston said. “That’s very entertaining hockey to be honest. I’m sure the people in the building were thrilled to death.
“But sometimes you don’t want to open it up that much against a very good opponent like Kootenay,” Johnston said. “We don’t mind if we get our scoring chances, but you don’t want to trade chances with a team.”
Kootenay played a strong third period, but Portland was in good shape until Kevin King made a strong play for the tying goal.
It came immediately after an extended break with 8:57 left to replace a piece of glass. King charged up the left boards after the Ice won a defensive zone faceoff, beat William Wrenn one on one and lifted the puck between Carruth and the post.
Kootenay turned up the heat from there and was buzzing the Portland goal as regulation time expired but couldn’t find a clear shot.
Knoblauch said his team played well at even strength, but wasn’t quite good enough.
“Right at the end of the third period, we had opportunities to win that game, but we were just a little bit short,” Knoblauch said. “We’re going to have to be better to beat the Portland Winterhawks.”
NOTES — Portland did not score first in any of the six games against Spokane in the Western Conference finals … Kootenay coach Kris Knoblauch was drafted by the Winterhawks as a 14-year-old. He attended three Portland prospect camps, but never played for Portland. He was eventually traded to Red Deer. Knoblauch is just 32 years old, the youngest head coach in the league and in his first season as Kootenay’s head coach. He noted during Friday’s WHL Finals press conference that Mike Johnston was a director of a coaching clinic he attended several years ago.
