Winterhawks the underdogs in return trip to the finals vs. Oil Kings: A WHL Championship Series preview

Last season, the Portland Winterhawks came into the WHL Championship Series to face a team with a hot goaltender. They were upset, 4 games to 1, and now turn around a year later to face another team with a red-hot goaltender. The Edmonton Oil Kings also sport one of the league's top offences and have the ability to roll two scoring lines.

It was a similar story going in. The Winterhawks, led by dynamo scorers in Ryan Johansen and Nino Neiderreiter, combined for 20 goals in 21 games in the opening three rounds of the playoffs. They were held to just 3 in the five games that followed. Kootenay's Nathan Lieuwen, who held a .929 save percentage going into that series, held strong and the Ice held the series close, striking twice in OT in home games 3 and 4 to win the Ed Chynoweth Cup and advance to the MasterCard Memorial Cup.

To say the task is tougher this year is an understatement. The Edmonton Oil Kings were the WHL's top club in the regular season, second best in the league in both goals for (behind only Portland) and goals against (behind only Tri-City). In the playoffs, the Oil Kings have been dominant, going 12-1 and out-scoring their opponents 53-22.

The "22" figure is probably more noteworthy than the "53" figure. The star for the Oil Kings has been their goaltender Laurent Brossoit, the Surrey, B.C. native and a sixth round pick of the Calgary Flames last June. Brossoit, known by his initials "LB" among teammates, leads the WHL in playoff save percentage at .945. He has kept the opposition below two goals eight times in his 13 starts this postseason, and it took until Game 4 of the WHL Eastern Conference Final for him to be cracked and surrender his first loss. He turned it around two nights later and stopped 37 of 38 to seal Edmonton's entry into this series.

Typically, save percentages that are too high or too low are beset by the inequities of variance and the tyranny of sample size, so to expect Brossoit to continue putting up those numbers through the finals series may be asking too much. He does put the Winterhawks up against a familiar foe, although the cast is slightly different.

Gone are Neiderreiter and Johansen, now in fashion are Sven Bärtschi and Ty Rattie, who have combined for 23 goals and 54 points through 15 playoff games. They're centred by Marcel Noebels, the forgotten man on the most dangerous line in the WHL playoffs, who has five goals to his credit.

Going down the lineup, there is still some good depth: Toronto Maple Leafs prospect Brad Ross has 12 goals this year, which is second on the team, Brendan Leipsic with five goals remains a series scoring threat, as has Cam Reid.

But Portland's ability isn't based off of pure scoring, they take an extremely high amount of shots and will do so in a manner to keep LB busy every night. Brossoit has seen just under 30 shots a game these playoffs thanks to some stellar defence in front of him, but Edmonton will face a puck possession juggernaut for the first time in the postseason. The Winterhawks have taken an average of 40 shots every 60 minutes of play this postseason.

Edmonton doesn't take as many shots as the Winterhawks, but they also don't allow as much. The Oil Kings may not play quite as high a tempo, but you don't become an elite club by relying on your goaltender every night. The Oil Kings are led in scoring by 1995-born Vernon, B.C.-native Curtis Lazar with eight goals, but they're a team where the scoring has been more spread out the lineup in the playoffs.

Michael St. Croix, the team's regular season scoring leader with 45 goals, has seen his production cut nearly in half, with just five in the 13 games. Tyler Maxwell, who scored 26 times in 47 regular season games for the Oil Kings, has scored just thrice in the 13 games. But the team has managed to maintain a high goals rate thanks to depth scoring. Kristians Pelss, who signed his first NHL contract, has four goals in 10 games, while fellow Oilers prospect Martin Gernat, the defenceman, has five goals, three on the powerplay, and two in the clinching game over Moose Jaw.

Production over the regular season is more predictive of a player's performance than what has happened to date in the playoffs. This is still a very skilled team. As Tri-City coach Jim Hiller noted about Edmonton, "They're the only team in the league that can match Portland in skill-for-skill. They were a team that surprised us the most when we played them, how good they were."

For the Winterhawks, who have been here before, there will be no surprises.

(1) Edmonton Oil Kings (50-15-3-4, 107 pts, def. Kootenay 4-0, def. Brandon 4-0, def. Moose Jaw 4-1) vs. (3) Portland Winterhawks (49-19-3-1, 102 pts, def. Kelowna 4-0, def. Kamloops 4-3, def. Tri-City 4-0)

Season series: Edmonton 1-0-0-0 (EDM won 8-4 at home on Oct. 21). Odds favour: Edmonton by 71%. Prediction: Edmonton in 6.

The numbers:

Regular Season:

Playoffs:

How they match up:

Offence:

As mentioned above, Portland has more top-end talent, but Edmonton has the likely edge with depth, but it each teams' strength isn't necessarily a weakness for the other. As was pointed out by a friend of mine (a Winterhawks fan) when discussing the series, he said that the Oil Kings have "two good lines like Portland and have better goaltending, but they don't have two players like Rattie and Bärtschi" which is a fair assessment of both teams. The Oil Kings have 11 players with 3 or more goals this playoffs. The Winterhawks, despite playing more games, only have nine.

But their top end talent is so superior, and we could even fit Brad Ross up with Rattie and Bärtschi: Ross was the most recent WHL player of the week, and he could be the true X-Factor in this series. I like the way he plays hockey, as it really works over the course of a series. Not only is he a threat to score every game, but he's also a tough guy and an agitator and can work to knock other players off their games. Edmonton's top players from the regular season have already been having a tough time in these playoffs, so they could also be in for a tough ride mentally if they draw the matchup against Ross.

Advantage: Portland.

Defence:

Portland's top two defencemen in scoring, Derrick Pouliot and Joe Morrow, are also prone to a bad pinch or two or an untimely turnover. The extra offence they create can be mitigated by the mistakes that they make, so the team will have to count on William Wrenn, Tyler Wotherspoon and Troy Rutkowski, three players who are less offensively gifted, but better suited to preventing shots.

Edmonton has seen brilliance from Gernat, Griffin Reinhart is one of the more heralded prospects entering the NHL Draft, but Mark Pysyk, the 20-year old captain, is a real key to this series. As Bruce McCurdy explains:

Advantage: Edmonton.

Goaltending:

Everything I could possibly write about Laurence Brossoit is mentioned above (that Edmonton Journal link is quite a good read as well) but Mac Carruth's play may be the deciding factor in this series. Carruth has been as hot and cold as a goalie can possibly get. Since the beginning of the second round, only on two occasions has Carruth surrendered two or three goals. He's allowed one or fewer on four occasions, and four or above five times.

Those games allowing four or more have to stop, since Brossoit, whose regular season save percentage was 10 points higher than Carruth's (.914 to .904) hasn't been giving up an awful lot at the other end. If Carruth plays the way he has in half of his playoff starts, Portland have a very good chance in this. Consistency, unfortunately, is the issue.

Advantage: Edmonton.

Why Edmonton should win: Better depth scoring, better defensively, more consistent goaltender.

How Portland could win: If Mac Carruth plays like he did in Games 3 and 4 of the Conference Finals (which earned him CHL Goaltender of the Week honours), he can match Brossoit's abilities. If this series comes down to offence, Portland are nearly unstoppable.