With ten games remaining in Portland’s season, which starts Friday in Kennewick, Winterhawks forward Joachim Blichfeld is the first WHL player to 50 goals as well as 100 points.
Blichfeld credits his teammates for his success reaching the 50 goal mark, so I took a quick look at how Blichfeld arrived at 50, now 51 goals.
Only three of his goals this season were unassisted: second goal against Kamloops on October 5th, second goal against Spokane on November 4th, and December 29th in Seattle.
As to be expected, Cody Glass is the teammate with the most assists on Blichfeld’s goals. The 19-year-old captain has 24 assists on the 51 goals. Perhaps even more impressive is his 18 primary assists.
Former Winterhawk Ryan Hughes deserves significant credit as well for Blichfeld’s goal production. The now Saskatoon Blade contributed 14 assists this season including a stretch where 9-of-11 of Blichfeld’s goals were assisted by Hughes.
Five of Blichfeld’s goals have come short handed. Jake Gricius is responsible for assisting on three of those. One is unassisted, and the other came from Glass and John Ludvig.
Gricius picked up seven other assists after Blichfeld scored which is third on the team if you count Ryan Hughes.
2001-born Reece Newkirk is next with seven assists; however, all but one of those occurred in 2018. Newkirk’s only assist in 2019 on a Blichfeld goal came two weeks ago in Seattle.
Overage defenseman and 19-year-old Josh Paterson (acquired in the trade with Saskatoon for Ryan Hughes) each have six. Five of Freadrich’s are secondary assists and all six are on the power play. For Paterson, six of his seven assists with the Winterhawks are on goals scored by Blichfeld. The only other came against Everett when the Edmonton, Alberta native assisted on a Cody Glass goal in the third period.
Part of Joachim Blichfeld’s success this season is his level of consistency. The longest goal drought for the San Jose seventh round pick is four games back in October (10th through 20th).
On the other hand, starting on December 29th, and running through January 9th, Blichfeld scored in six straight games.
Two weeks ago DUBNetwork did some quick research to see how many goals he would need to score to finish the season with the most by a Winterhawks import player. At the time the chances looked bleak Blichfeld could catch Oliver Bjorkstrand’s 2014-2015 season of 63 goals.
However, with 10 games to go, the Frederikshavn, Denmark native needs 12 goals to tie his fellow Danish forward.
In order for Blichfeld to stand all alone atop the goal-scoring chart, Joachim needs to average 1.3 goals per game; through 58 he is averaging 0.88.
Working in Blichfeld’s favor is Portland’s schedule. As of February 19th, and per Geoffrey Brandow, the Winterhawks have the fourth easiest schedule.
#WHL Average point percentage of remaining opponents (ranked by easiest): (3/3)
22) @MJWARRIORS – .453
21) @WHLHitmen – .456
20) @PARaidersHockey – .476
19) @pdxwinterhawks – .489
18) @WHLGiants – .501
T-16) @WHLsilvertips – .508
T-16) @EdmOilKings – .508
15) @blazerhockey – .520— Geoffrey Brandow (@GeoffreyBrandow) February 20, 2019
A quick breakdown by opponent:
| Opponent: | Blichfeld goals vs. opponent in 2018-2019 |
| Tri-City – 1 game remaining | 6 goals in 7 games |
| Seattle – 3 games remaining | 9 goals in 9 games |
| Spokane – 1 game remaining | 4 goals in 5 games |
| Kelowna – 2 games remaining | 3 goals in 2 games |
| Prince George – 2 games remaining | 1 goal in 2 games |
| Everett – 1 game remaining | 7 goals in 9 games |
Other teammates assisting on Blichfeld goals include: John Ludvig (5), Brendan De Jong (4), Clay Hanus (3), Nick Cicek (3), Michal Kvasnica (1), Nick Perna (1), Lane Gilliss (1), and Matthew Quigley (1)
Regardless how many goals Joachim Blichfeld finishes the season with, the extra year in juniors has been a successful one as he moves into pro hockey next year.
