Kamloops Blazers right wing Jordan DePape (The Canadian Press)No. 1 star: Jordan DePape, Kamloops Blazers (WHL)

The Blazers have promises to keep and miles to go before they sweep the last four games of the Western Conference final, but the way they have fought off match point twice against the Portland Winterhawks is admirable. DePape, the veteran who missed nearly the entire regular season due to shoulder season shouldered the load by notching four points (2G-2A) in the Blazers' 7-2 pounding of Portland in front o a crowd of 10,135 in the Rose City.

Only one Western Hockey League team has ever surmounted a 3-0 deficit. DePape factored into both first-period Blazers goals as they took a 2-0 lead, receiving an assist on Marek Hrbas' opener after Portland's Mac Carruth played a puck rather than freeze it and then scoring the second. The Winnipegger had a secondary helper when Brendan Ranford got a dagger goal with 42 seconds left in the second period to re-open a three-goal lead and make it all but official there will be a Game 6 in the B.C. Interior on Monday.

From Jim Beseda:

The Blazers ... moved a step closer to becoming only the second team in WHL history to rally from a 3-0 deficit to win a best-of-seven series.

The Spokane Chiefs were the first to do it — in the first round of the 1995-96 West Division playoffs against the Winterhawks.

"It was do or die tonight," DePape said. "I think our guys were obviously all ready. We were kind of blazing out there and we were lucky enough to get the win." (The Oregonian)

Kamloops goalie Cam Lanigan stopped 34-of-36 shots as his team shut down Portland, which had Ty Rattie back in the lineup from injury. The 7-2 margin represented Portland's worst home playoff loss in 23 years.

Halifax Mooseheads centre Nathan MacKinnon (Richard Wolowicz, Getty Images)

Another Nathan MacKinnon does something amazing post — yeah, that's right.

Perhaps the Halifax Mooseheads could have kept their season alive with the typically beautifully ugly playoff goal. MacKinnon, the 16-year-old who's pegged to be the NHL's No. 1 draft pick in 2013, reached back for a little extra on Friday night. With the Mooseheads square at 2-2 with the Quebec Remparts in the third period and down 3-1 in the QMJHL playoff series, playing their perhaps final game of the season in front of a massive crowd of 9,664, MacKinnon scored the winning goal on a fantabulous solo effort. After taking a short pass as he crossed the blueline, he realized the Remparts defenders Marc-Antonie Carrier and Mikaël Tam were just stepping on the ice and had yet to get their bearings.

In that split second, he created space, brushed off a stick check from likely NHL lottery pick Mikhail Grigorenko and wired in the winning goal. It was his 10th goal in nine playoff games; if the Mooseheads can keep playing, there's a chance MacKinnon will set a team record for goals in one playoff year. Remember, he's 16 years old.

The play begins at 1:18 in the video below.

"I saw the two defencemen changing, they had just got on the ice and were a little flat-footed," MacKinnon told Mooseheads play-by-play man John Moore. "I knew I didn't have enough room to beat them wide, so I thought I'd stutter-step them. I just put the puck on the net and luckily enough, it went under his [Quebec goalie Louis Domingue's] stick."

Halifax Mooseheads centre Nathan MacKinnon (The Canadian Press)No. 1 star: Nathan MacKinnon, Halifax Mooseheads (QMJHL)

The Cole Harbour comet delivered the game-winning goal in the third period to help the Mooseheads beat the Quebec Remparts 3-2, extending their series to a Game 6 on Monday. MacKinnon (1G-1A, seven shots on goal, 11-of-21 on faceoffs) got the deciding goal on a solo effort in the third period, thrilling a crowd of 9,664 in the Nova Scotia capital. MacKinnon also had the secondary assist on an earlier go-ahead goal by defenceman Trey Lewis off a beautiful three-way passing play with Jonathan Drouin as the middleman.

From Matthew Wuest:

MacKinnon showcased his game-breaking speed as he crossed the blue line on a one-on-two, creating his own space before putting a low shot against the grain under the stick of goaltender Louis Domingue at 8:02.

"Wow," was the post-game reaction of Mooseheads goaltender Zach Fucale, who picked up an assist on the play. "He came through for us and we owe him a big thanks for that one."

... I think we outplayed them for the majority of the game and we'll take the win," MacKinnon said.

MacKinnon's tally — his 10th of the playoffs in just nine games, two away from matching the franchise record — put his young team in the driver's seat and brought the crowd to its feet. (Metro Halifax)

Only three teams in Quebec league history have ever come back from a 3-0 deficit to win a playoff series. To do so, the Mooseheads would have win back-to-back games in Quebec City, beginning Monday with Game 6.

Barrie Colts' Mathias Niederberger (OHL Images)Mathias Niederberger has gone from curiosity to being cursed by opposing teams' fans.

In hindsight, it should have been no stunner at all the 19-year-old native with pro experience in his native Germany would eventually play lights-out in the Ontario Hockey League. But the beauty of junior hockey is that there's still some room for an element of surprise. Niederberger, a native of Duesseldorf, has brought the undermanned Barrie Colts to the brink of reaching the OHL's Eastern Conference final. Barrie is still up 3-2 over the Ottawa 67's after a one-goal loss on Friday where Niederberger made 43 saves to keep the Colts in the hunt until the final buzzer. The only pucks to get by him came when Ottawa's Cody Ceci one-timed a rebound from 10 feet out and on a scramble with 8.8 seconds left in the second period where Dalton Smith had Niederberger practically pinned to the ice while Tyler Toffoli slid the puck into the net.

"I wished I would get busy nights like this when I decided to come here," said Niederberger, who has a tidy 2.09 goals-against average and .942 save percentage in 11 playoff starts. "It's such a big difference with the smaller ice in Canada. Everything is straighter to the net. I like it, it's great. I think I adjusted pretty quickly."

Looks can be so deceiving in hockey. Niederberger, whose father, Andreas Niederberger, was a four-time Olympic hockey player for Germany in the 1980s and '90s, is listed at a compact 5-foot-11 and 170 pounds. Given the NHL's predilection for bigger goaltenders, it's not surprising he's only ranked 22nd on NHL Central Scouting's final ranking of North American goaltenders. But he's playing bigger than his listed size. Beating him on anything but a deflection or rebound seems harder.

"He moves well laterally, so it's tough to get one by him," said 67's centre Sean Monahan, who assisted on both Ottawa goals on Friday. "He's good low and I think we just have to get goals like we did today, crash and bang and get screens in front of him."

Walleye is a popular fish among sport anglers in the midwestern U.S., Manitoba and OntarioThe Ontario Hockey League is apparently bent on giving the NFL a run for its money as the no-fun league.

There is a strange phenomena with a spontaneous fan tradition in hockey: it can't be programmed, planned for or workshopped by a marketing committee. So it is with a tinge of sadness that one has to pass along the news the OHL has cracked down on Saginaw Spirits' fans essentially harmless and light-hearted tradition of tossing walleye on the ice after the home team scores during the playoffs.

The league  has not been as vehement about calling attention to its written policy that spectators who throw objects on the ice will be ejected on other occasions when fans got their throw on. Yet OHL vice-president Ted Baker is enforcing the policy now, claiming the practice never came to the league's attention since Saginaw is a relatively less publicized team that has not had many extended playoff runs during its decade in mid-Michigan. Question: is strained credulity classified as an upper- or lower-body injury?

From Kyle Austin:

Baker said the OHL first became aware of the practice following Sunday's Game 2 between the Spirit and London Knights, through both a league director of officials who was present and through a phone call from the London Free Press.

Sunday's game was the fourth playoff game the Spirit have hosted this year.

"That was the first time that we had become aware of it, that it was transpiring in these playoffs," Baker said. "Given that Saginaw had only played one round, and that's our fault."

Baker said the lack of a Spirit television broadcast helped the practice go unnoticed by the league office.

The league's policy against objects being thrown on the ice is in place "for the safety and welfare of the players and the spectators and for the integrity of the game," Baker said, noting the OHL's policy is similar to the NHL's policy. (Saginaw News)

Sarnia Sting centre Alex Galchenyuk (Claus Anderson, Getty Images)In our mind's eye, there's endless hypothesizing about how a Alex Galchenyuk-Nail Yakupov draft derby coulda-woulda-shoulda unfolded.

It never came to be largely thanks to Galchenyuk's collision with a goal post during an exhibition game in September that cost the 18-year-old centre all but a handful of games skating alongside Yakupov with the Sarnia Sting. Might have it been a reprise of Taylor vs. Tyler from two years ago? Yakupov plays the right side, not the left side, but he is the scoring winger with skill and speed who is the more developed physical package thanks in part to an earlier birthday à la Taylor Hall in 2009-10. Galchenyuk could have been cast as the playmaking centre with the higher upside and more all-around game like Tyler Seguin showed that season with the Ontario Hockey League's

Yakupov's status as NHL Central Scouting and several other scouting services' top North American prospect for the NHL draft is justified, as BTN's Kelly Friesen detailed this morning. (This a strictly a sidebar to that post.) Yet HockeyProspect is willing to get out in front and say Galchenyuk should be the guy at the top of the draft list.

Alex is an extremely skilled player, who missed nearly six months of action with a knee injury. "Alex was right there in our pre-season discussions about who might be the No. 1 prospect for this year's draft," says HockeyProspect.com scout Ryan Yessie. Ryan lives in Sarnia, and had over 40 live viewings of Alex before his injury. "We felt Alex had everything needed to be that No. 1 prospect. It was very disappointing to see him go down with this injury, and we feel that although he only played a few games, he proved what we believe to have the most upside at the NHL level of any prospect."

Combing all corners of the country and the blogosphere for your junior hockey headlines ...

WHL

Portland Winterhawks scoring star Ty Rattie is injured; that much we know. (Kamloops Daily News, Oregon Live, Taking Note)

How does the Edmonton Oil Kings' 8-0 playoff run compare to the Saint John Sea Dogs' 8-0 playoff run down east? Guy Flaming contrasts and compares. (Coming Down The Pipe!)

That's the only roaming he plans on doing: likely NHL first-rounder Mathew Dumba, captain of Canada's under-18 team, called southern Alberta scribe Kristen Odland back from the Czech Republic. (Calgary Herald)

It's Spokane Chiefs Hockey Day in Eastern Washington. Will that help the home team even its series by winning Game 4 vs. Tri-City? (Spokane Spokesman-Review)

A few of the Edmonton Oil Kings have never experienced a playoff series that actually needed a Game 5. (Edmonton Sun)

Vancouver Giants centre Jordan Martinook, the late bloomer who didn't crack the lineup until he was 18, is hoping his 40-goal season pays off with a pro contract. (Leduc Representative)

Niagara IceDogs coach-GM Marty Williamson and forward David Pacan (OHL Images)There's a storyline that cannot be overdone: two seasons ago, then-Barrie Colts coach Marty Williamson moved a promising 16-year-old centre named Ryan Strome to the Niagara IceDogs, then joined that organization following the season. Now the IceDogs coach-GM and his star centre could be poised to face their old team in the Eastern Conference final after Thursday's results.

On with the post-game questions:

Barrie 3 Ottawa 2 (Colts lead Eastern Conference semifinal 3-1) — Are the 67's finito after moving to within one loss from elimination? They're not playing well enough to be upset about the result, but Ottawa has a chance if it can punch through the Colts' Rhineland Roadblock where everyone collapses inside to help out German goaltender Mathias Niederberger. This was their second one-goal loss of the series, so it easily could have gone the other way.

At the same time, Ottawa's been a little too laissez-faire by times to make one think they can live on the razor's edge and win three consecutive games. The first Colts goal from seldom-used defenceman Derek Hartwick came when forward Steven Janes "feathered" (Stephen Sweet's term, not mine) a weak clearing attempt and the puck stayed in the defensive zone. Ottawa goalie Petr Mrazek (three goals on 21 shots) also gave up another goal from well out when Barrie's Aaron Ekblad tied the game on the opening shift of the third period with a wrist shot from 35-plus feet.