This weekend marked the start of the Eastern Swing. Five Alberta teams from Saturday to next Friday, before the Portland Winterhawks return to their home opener on October 25. There will be a game in Langley against the Vancouver Giants the night prior, but the 11-game road swing to start the season will be over.
To start, the swing games were played in Lethbridge and Medicine Hat, with a five-goal difference in each; one favored the Hawks and one didn’t.
The swing started against the Lethbridge Hurricanes when they made a splash at the trade deadline last season, but didn’t advance as far as they would have liked in the postseason. The Canes started decently but have faltered, with a 2-7 record, and remain in the playoff hunt, tied with eighth-place Red Deer for fourth place with four points. The Canes are not going to be in heavy contention like last year as they are doing the same as many squads of the Rising up and then cycling when their attempt at all in goes south.
The Hawks are a young team, backstopped mainly by Ondrej Stebatek, who may bail them out during the season. The Hawks are still carrying three goaltenders with recently acquired Chase Cruz from the Medicine Hat Tigers and Blake Clarke, who will most likely be the odd man out when the team pares down to a smaller roster.
The game vs Lethbridge saw Portland’s Nathan Brown deflect a shot out front while on the power play, giving the Hawks the 1-0 lead. A short lived lead as Ondrej Stebatek corralled the puck behind his net to a team mate, only to see him off the puck and a pass across out front of Stebatek and in for the tie. Lethbridge took the lead with traffic in front and a cleanup to the right of Stebatek for the 2-1 lead at the end of the first.
On Portland’s third power play of the night, Nathan Free took a pass from the corner and roofed it over the shoulder of the Lethbridge netminder to tie the game. Carter Southern had a sharp-angle shot that hit the post, and Alex Weirmeir was able to retrieve the rebound into the cage for Portland’s first lead.
The short-lived lead was an intercepted pass of Griffen Darby in the Hawks’ zone, allowing Lethbridge to move the puck up front, and a wrister was buried past Stebatek.
The Hawks went back on the power play, and after some work in the offensive zone, they managed to get Nathan Brown with a tap-in of the puck to trickle over the line for yet another tie game.
Lethbridge answered with a breakaway that went five-hole, and we were knotted again. Carter Southern broke that deadlock with a significant extra effort following an up-and-boards pass, working to the slot, and he fired it for the Hawks’ lead again.
The third period was all Hawks as it seemed starting netminder Koen Cleaver was unable to get the support he needed. First, it was Nathan Free out front, then Kaye Reudig with a sharp-angled shot, followed by a miscue by Cleaver, who swung the puck to a Hawks stick, and Sam Spehar had no issue out front. His brother Finn Spehar ended the scoring for the Hawks with a couple of minutes left in regulation and a 9-4 win. Shots favored Portland 37-25, and the power play clicked at 4 of 6 versus 1 for 4 for Lethbridge, leaving them winless on home ice.
As mentioned earlier, the two games were separated by five goals, with a win and a loss, so we can guess what happened the following night against the Medicine Hat Tigers. Cruz Chase made his Hawks debut with Bud Clarke as the backup in Cruz’s home area.
The Tigers scored three goals in the first period, with the last while on the power play. The scored once on the second, and a power-play goal salted it away for the Tigers, who went 2-5 on the power play, while shutting down the Hawks’ five attempts. Chase had made some impressive stops and prevented the score from getting worse, while the Hawks hit a post and crossbar in the second frame as they came close, but not close enough for the tallies. The Tigers also outshot the Hawks 37-31, and now the Hawks will travel for a special Monday tilt in Calgary, with a noon Pacific start, as it’s Canadian Thanksgiving. After week three, only the Everett Silvertips have yet to lose in regulation, and their only blemish is the 3-2 overtime win by the Hawks a couple of weeks back.
Out East, only the Brantford Bulldogs have yet to lose in regulation, but have an overtime and shootout loss to their record. The Windsor Spitfires have the top record at 9-1.
The QMJHL sees little change with Blanville-Boisbriard Armada still undefeated in regulation. However, they finally lost in overtime to the Sherbrooke Phoenix, gaining one point in the standings. Baie Comeaux Drakkar remains winless with their two points as a result of an overtime loss and a shootout loss.
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