Portland Winterhawks claim opener against ‘undisciplined’ Oil Kings

PORTLAND, Ore. — The opening game of the Western Hockey League final lived up to the hype as the host Portland Winterhawks skated away with a 5-2 victory over the Edmonton Oil Kings and a 1-0 lead in their best-of-seven series.

The Winterhawks, the defending WHL champions, broke open the scoring at the 2:50 mark of the first period and would add two more before the first 20 minutes had ended to put the Oil Kings in a deep hole.

"We track a lot of stats and one of the most concerning stats to me tonight were the battles won and battles lost," said Oil Kings head coach Derek Laxdal. "We lost 35 battles to our 15 wins, so that was the difference in the game.

"Can't worry about it now - reset the button for tomorrow and be ready to go."

Portland head coach and GM Mike Johnston had to break up his lines for this game since forward Brendan Leipsic was serving a one game suspension for spearing picked up in their series against the Kelowna Rockets. The one line the coach kept together was the one featuring Keegan Iverson, who scored the opening goal, Dominic Turgeon and Alex Schoenborn.

"I really like that line - they're a young kids line," said Johnston. "They're an energy line and they play a big body, physical game. I said there would be a lot of mixing and matching of players out there but I wasn't going to change that line and I really liked how that line played for us tonight."

Even without Leipsic, who is his regular linemate, Paul Bittner was still able to contribute two goals for Portland.

"A couple good plays from my teammates to get me the puck," said Bittner, who scored his third and fourth goals of the playoffs. "I didn't even know that second one went in, so it was a couple lucky bounces for me."

The Oil Kings battled back in the second scoring two early goals - in the first 2:20 of the period - to cut the deficit, but bad penalties derailed whatever momentum had been created.

"We got undisciplined," said Laxdal. "I'm not going to go down that road with some of those calls. We took some bad penalties and there were some penalties that I thought could have gone in the other direction, but we have to have that discipline for 60 minutes. We have to have that controlled emotion for 60 minutes when you get a game back to 3-2 you have a little bit of momentum and we took it right away from ourselves - it wasn't anything Portland did - we kind of shot ourselves in the foot."

It was Portland defenceman Mathew Dumba - who had been playing in the NHL prior to being traded from Red Deer in December - that came through late in the second period on a power play to extend the lead with a blistering shot that beat Edmonton goalie Tristan Jarry. The second round pick of the Pittsburgh Penguins had a largely inconsistent night with 31 saves.

"I thought (Jarry) gave us a chance to complete tonight," said Oil Kings head coach Derek Laxdal. "If you look at the three goals we gave up in the first period, we had some missed assignments and we made some mistakes that were uncharacteristic.

"Our guys have to play tighter in front of (Jarry) that was the difference. They have a high octane offence and they move the puck around well."

Prior to the game both teams had setup the series as a matchup between Portland's potent offence - the top scoring team in the WHL with 338 goals - and Edmonton's stingy defence. In the end, the Oil Kings looked to be outmatched and undisciplined, allowing the Winterhawks to go 1-for-5 with the extra advantage. Their own power play went 0-for-4.

"Your power play has to answer the bell at the important times of the game," said Laxdal. "Especially with the loud crowd here so you want to take the crowd out of the game. We had some good looks but we just didn't bury them."

This is the third consecutive year Portland and Edmonton are meeting in the WHL final. The Winterhawks are the defending champions, while the Oil Kings won a title in 2012. Game 2 of the series will be played Sunday afternoon at Portland's Moda Centre before the teams head to Edmonton for Games 3 and 4 of the series on Tuesday and Wednesday.