Tri-City Americans, Portland Winterhawks on collision course; a WHL Western Conference playoff preview

The two seemingly battled neck-and-neck all through the season, right down to the final couple of weeks when a six-game winning streak by the Tri-City Americans earned the team the nod over division rival Portland Winterhawks for the top seed in the WHL's Western Conference.

They argue on the hockey rink as much as they argue philosophy; the Americans' recent graduates to the National Hockey League include goaltender Carey Price and defensive defenceman Clayton Stoner. The free-wheeling Winterhawks have recently produced future offensive stars Ryan Johansen and Nino Neiderreiter.

Indeed, the two mixed it up several times this year, nine times, and on four occasions the Winterhawks scored five goals or more on the league's top defensive team. On three occasions, the Americans held the league's best offensive team to one goal or fewer. The team's systems are much different, with Portland employing fantastic stars in Ty Rattie, Brad Ross, Joe Morrow, Oliver Gabriel and Cam Reid, who all cracked the point-per-game barrier this season. The ace in their sleeve — Sven Bärtschi — will be again available to the team now that his emergency call-up to the Calgary Flames ended with three goals in five games.

On the other side of the benches, should the two hook up in the league's conference final, Tri-City boast the league's top scorer in overager Brendan Shinnimin. The Winnipegger had a wild second half with 43 points in February and 17 in March. He also earned a contract with the NHL's Phoenix Coyotes and has scored at least a point in 23 games. The Americans also had a fantastic season out of top defenceman Zachary Yuen and goaltender Ty Rimmer led the league in save percentage, probably the league's best goalie this season.

All four Western Conference series open Friday.

(4) Vancouver Giants (40-26-2-4, 86 points) vs. (5) Spokane Chiefs (38-25-5-4, 85 points)

Season series: Vancouver 2-0-0-0. Odds favour: Spokane 53%. Prediction: Spokane in 6.

Why Spokane should win: Not much separated these two teams in the standings, and Spokane is favoured by the odds likely because of a better strength of schedule, thanks to playing in the U.S. Division. Spokane, despite finishing lower in the standings, had to rely on fewer close games to win, finishing the year having scored more goals and giving up fewer. Mac Engel will see the starts for Spokane, but his save percentage was just .893 this season despite the team being the stingiest defensively in the league. They just don't give up a lot of shots, which should close down a lot of the space for Vancouver's forwards. They're also a much deeper team than the Giants, featuring seven 40-point scorers and then 30-point scorers (to Vancouver's four and seven, respectively).

New York Islanders-drafted defenceman Brenden Kitchon led Spokane team in scoring, but they were led in points per game (slightly) by Czech import and Pittsburgh Penguins pick ick Dominik Uher. Uher had eight points in seven games before being held scoreless on the final day of the season, so he's coming in playing some good two-way hockey and may seem some matchups against Vancouver's top line.

How Vancouver could win: Well, they did beat Spokane twice this season in the teams' only appearances against one another, but both were one-goal affairs and one of those was back in February. That said, I like the Giants system and their forwards, particularly the skilled Brendan Gallagher who has seen no shortage of headlines this season, and Marek Tvrdon who's gotten used to the North American ice surface by now and has 13 multi-point games in his second half of the season.

I see Vancouver having an edge in goal. Mind you, Adam Morrison had just a .901 save percentage since joining the Giants in a deal with Saskatoon and was behind a pretty rough defeat at the hands of the Kootenay Ice last season. But experience in goal always comes in handy in the postseason. However, the Giants only have home ice by virtue of playing in the weaker of the two WHL Western Conference divisions, so we shouldn't consider this an upset at all if the lower seed wins this one.

The David Musil injury should also be costly in such a short series, taking away one of Vancouver's best defencemen.

(3) Portland Winterhawks (49-19-3-1, 102 pts) vs. (6) Kelowna Rockets (31-31-4-6, 72 pts)

Season series: Portland 4-0-0-0. Odds favour: Portland 87%. Prediction: Portland in 4.

Why Portland should win: The league's second best team according to RPI winds up with the third seed in its own conference because of a silly rule that guarantees each division winner a top two seed for the first round. Portland was nigh unbeatable down the stretch, as mentioned in the above blurb, with some terrific offence that saw the team score at least five or more goals 35 times,, almost once every second game. They defeated their opponents by five or more goals 11 times.

Most nights, they were led by Bartschi, but he only played 47 games this season, so most of the offence was left to the equally dangerous Rattie, who led the team with 121 points and looked to be in contention for the league's top scorer before Shinnimin hit his peak.

This is a dangerous team that uses activated defence and one of the league's most entertaining powerplays to watch that can hit you many different ways, and Kelowna should be lucky to win a single game, particularly because they do take a lot of penalties.

How Kelowna could win: Realistically, however, Portland's second-half offence is probably a bit of a mirage propped up by unsustainable percentages. I could see a team with a hot goalie, like last season in the WHL Championship series when the Winterhawks ran into a red-hot Nathan Lieuwen. Is Adam Brown that guy in Kelowna, with an .895 save percentage? I doubt it.

Should the Rockets win a couple of games, it may be because scorer-pest Brett Bulmer is effective in throwing a few Winterhawks off their game, or the defensively-minded Colton Sissons wins his matchups. This is a real young defence in Kelowna, however, highlighted by Damon Severson as both an offensive and a defensive option, who already do give up a lot of shots (32 per 60 minutes against Brown) so they'll need to be solid all the way through. I don't see Kelowna doing this with goaltending alone, and it might be another team to knock them off.

(2) Kamloops Blazers (47-20-2-3, 99 pts) vs. Victoria Royals (24-41-3-4, 55 pts)

Season series: Kamloops 7-1-0-0. Odds favour: Kamloops 90%. Prediction: Kamloops in 4.

Why Kamloops should win: Because they are far and away a better team.

Personal anecdote, here, however. I moved to Kamloops in the fall of 2006, and they have yet to win a playoff game since then, let alone a series. But I don't expect them to have too much trouble against Victoria, who are a apparently playoff team having won 24 of 72 games. Rob's odds have the Blazers with a 96% chance to win a single game, which ought to appease some of the locals.

A lot of Kamloops' turnaround has been credited to Cole Cheveldave. He had a .909 save percentage in 55 starts, excellent from a rookie goaltender. That said, Kamloops has a very tough defence who does not let Cheveldave see a lot of shots, led by Columbus draft pick Austin Madaisky. Offensively, the team offers a decent amount of depth, led in scoring by Brendan Ranford, but coach Guy Charron also deploys him defensively which opens a lot of space for the speedy second unit highlighted by Tim Bozon, a French import who has had a terrific season with 71 points in 71 games.

How Victoria could win: Last year, the Chilliwack Bruins were the only WHL West underdog to win a playoff game, so the relocated franchise in Victoria could keep up the same trend. I don't see the Royals having much of a shot in this series unless they hold up the Blazers' team bus as they cross the ferry to Vancouver Island.

Victoria doe have some good pieces moving forward, but goalie Keith Hamilton's .880 this season didn't get the job done and no WHL team gave up more goals than the Royals. I quite like Hayden Rintoul on defence and the team got some good value when they traded Kevin Sundher to Brandon, but he was second in scoring on this young team even though he played most of his season in the town geographically the farthest away from Victoria.

(1) Tri-City Americans (50-18-2-2, 104 pts) vs. (8) Everett Silvertips (22-40-2-8, 54 pts)

Season series: Tri-City 6-2-0-0. Odds favour: Tri-City 92%. Prediction: Tri-City in 4.

Why Tri-City should win: Everything Portland is on offence, Tri-City is on defence, which is odd considering they have the league's best scorer in Shinnimin, but what's really impressive is their defensive record. Not only did Rimmer stop .922 of all shots he faced, but 15 more starting goalies in the league saw more shots per 60 minutes of ice-time than he did and rookie Eric Comrie saw fewer against him than any goalie in the league that doesn't play for Spokane.

The Ams conceded two or fewer goals on 34 occasions this year, which means they're a little bit more than a team with a dominant first line of Shinnimin, Adam Hughesman and Patrick Holland, who each topped 100 points this season. This is what makes them so dangerous going forward, because they can hit you a number of different ways: stingy defence, overpowering first line, or a hot goalie.

How Everett could win: Sabotage is always an option. These are not the same Everett Silvertips from the Kevin Constantine era, who could slow games to a crawl. No, no, the 'Tips were particularly adept at slowing down themselves, scoring just 183 goals this season, but they gave up 268, a touch more than their first season in the league (2004) when they advanced to the WHL final after having given up 153 all season.

They have plenty of tough customers (the Brennan Yadlowski story is one of my favourites from the season) such as Ryan Harrison and Josh Caron who will probably have no reservations about engaging with former teammate Jesse Mychan. Ultimately, this is not a team that we ought to expect to compete with on the scoreboard unless Kent Simpson, who is one of the league's better goaltenders, is absolutely lights-out.

(Eastern Conference playoff preview.)

(Odds by Rob Pettapiece.)

Cam Charron is a Buzzing the Net writer who mostly covers the WHL. Follow him on Twitter @camcharron.