Portland avoids weekend sweep with gutsy effort

The Portland Winterhawks were sick of the Don Hay celebration weekend. They were on the losing end twice at the Sandman Centre this weekend as Hay grabbed wins 742 and 743 and became the winningest coach in WHL history.

Sunday evening, after both teams made the nine-hour trip down, the Hawks finally got back to winning in downing the Blazers 4-2 behind two point nights by Jake Gricius, Keoni Texeira and Henri Jokiharju.

The two losses in Kamloops were tough ones as the Winterhawks, who were without Kieffer Bellows and Cody Glass, lost top-four defenseman Matthew Quigley to a two-game suspension for an elbow he put on Kamloops’ Tylor Ludwar on Friday.

Quigley served both games over the weekend.

After both Cole Kehler and Max Palaga for Kamloops each made 14 saves in the first, the Winterhawks found the score sheet.

Jokiharju used a screen by Gricius and wired a shot by Palaga on the power play 4:46 into the second to open the scoring.

Then Gricius left his post in front of the net on the man advantage to take a pass in the slot. He solved Palaga for his third goal in three games vs. Kamloops. The center has slowly earned more and more ice time over the weekend and has discovered a knack for winning pucks near the opponent’s net.

15-year-old rookie Seth Jarvis then made the best play of his very young WHL career to set up the eventual game winner in the third. He entered the Kamloops zone and waited for his teammates. He then took a huge hit right as he dished to a trailing Jokiharju. The Finnish d-man then found the onrushing Texeira for his seventh this year.

Not ones to make it easy on themselves this weekend, the tired Hawks jeopardized a 3-0 lead in the third period when Joachim Blichfeld cross-checked Nolan Kneen, earning two for slashing, a five minute major for cross-checking and a game misconduct. He will also likely serve at least a game as well for the hit.

The Blazers took advantage of their lengthy power play by scoring twice on tips from Luc Smith and Quinn Benjafield to make it a 3-2 game. Both scored their third on the weekend vs. Portland.

Unlike Saturday, when the Hawks blew a 2-0 lead, this one would end up holding.

After Skyler McKenzie fired wide, Mason Mannek iced the game with an empty netter, his eighth this year.

Cole Kehler stopped 33 of 35 in the win, while Palaga turned away 28 of 31.

Each team scored twice on the power play with Kamloops having four chances and Portland two.

Portland Head Coach Mike Johnston earned win number 300.