Andy Devlin

Daily Dose of the Dub: Gally headed to Rockets; Philp has career night

Gally the odd overage player out in Medicine Hat

The Kelowna Rockets added a fourth overager on Wednesday, acquiring d-man Dalton Gally from the Medicine Hat Tigers in exchange for a conditional draft pick. The veteran blue liner is coming off a complete 72-game campaign in which he recorded two goals and 10 assists. He’ll be joining Braydyn Chizen, Ryan Bowen and the injured Lane Zablocki as Kelowna’s 20-year-olds. For Medicine Hat, the move gets them down to the overage limit of three, where they’ll go forward with Ryan Jevne, Dylan MacPherson and Linus Nassen.

Portland names Glass captain

Portland Winterhawks’ star Cody Glass will wear the “C” for the remainder of the season. Glass, 19, becomes the 43rd captain in franchise history. The No. 6 overall pick in the 2017 draft has recorded a whopping 13 points over his first five games of the season. Rounding out the leadership group for Portland will be Brendan De Jong, Joachim Blichfeld, Jared Freadrich and Jake Gricius, who will all don the “A” this year.

Three stars of the night:

  1. Noah Philp – Four-goal night for the overage forward who had zero goals this year entering the night. His first goal of the night was his first since March 3rd. He then went on to net his first every multi-goal effort in his WHL career. He added another for his first hat trick in the WHL and then one more for good effort in the Seattle Thunderbirds 9-6 win over the Kelowna Rockets on the road.
  2. Joachim Blichfeld – Another first for an overage player as Blichfeld had five assists, leading the Portland Winterhawks to an 8-2 route over the visiting Edmonton Oil Kings. Blichfeld’s quintet of assists give him 22 points in eight games. That is the most in the WHL, and the first five-assist game by a Winterhawk since Brendan Leipsic in 2013.
  3. Cody Glass – Blichfeld’s linemate had two goals and two assists for four points in the Portland win – their fifth in-a-row. Glass has 17 points in his six games back with Portland since being returned from the Vegas Golden Knights.

Honorable mentions: Dillon Hamaliuk, Jake Lee and Zack Andrusiak had three point nights for Seattle and Simon Kubicek netted his first two WHL goals…Leif Mattson had two goals and two assists for Kelowna… Reece Newkirk had a goal and two assists for Portland… Former Winterhawk Ty Kolle netted his first two goals of the year as the Lethbridge Hurricanes doubled up the Regina Pats 4-2.

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