Schelter, O’Brien post two points apiece as Hawks win fifth straight

The Winterhawks picked up a fifth win in a row on Friday with a 4-1 decision against visiting Prince George.

Game #39: Portland (4) vs Prince George (1)

SOG: POR (47) – PG (27)

PP: POR (1/4) – PG (0/3)

Saves: Gauthier (26/27) – Brennan (43/47)

COMPLETE BOX SCORE

SCORING:

• PG – 7:41 – First Period – Riley Heidt (11) from Hudson Thornton
• POR – 11:30 – First Period – Aidan Litke (11) from Josh Mori and Luke Schelter
• POR – 4:10 – Second Period – Clay Hanus (9) from James Stefan
• POR – 14:22 – Second Period – Luke Schelter (5) from Ryder Thompson and Jack O’Brien
• POR – 8:53 – Third Period – Jack O’Brien (7) from Marcus Nguyen and Ryan McCleary

The Story:

Led by two-point efforts from Jack O’Brien and Luke Schelter, the Portland Winterhawks topped the Prince George Cougars 4-1 during Pride Night at the VMC on Friday. Taylor Gauthier – traded to Portland by the Cougars on Dec. 27 – got the best of his old club with 26 saves on 27 shots. Gauthier has won all six games he has started with the Winterhawks, and the club has now recorded a point in 12 consecutive contests.

The Cougars got the best of the Winterhawks at the start of the game, culminating in an early 1-0 lead behind Riley Heidt’s 11th tally of the year. Portland’s offense began to materialize as the team settled into the game, though, and Aidan Litke knotted things up at one apiece with his 11th of the year. Litke located a bouncing puck at the mouth of the crease and chipped it home at 11:30.

Heading into the middle frame deadlocked at one, the Hawks began to take over the shot count and Clay Hanus broke through early in the frame to give the home team its first lead of the night. James Stefan broke in the zone alone, but Prince George netminder Tyler Brennan managed to separate him from the puck, only to see it end up on the stick of Hanus who easily deposited it into a mostly empty net. The goal was Hanus’ ninth of the year, and Portland’s co-captain now ranks tied for fourth among WHL defensemen with 35 points on the year.

Schelter put the game out of reach 10 minutes later with a one-timed blast from the top of the left circle. Schelter’s tally was his fifth of the season and marked his second point of the night – his first multi-point outing of the year. Jack O’Brien added an insurance goal on the power play in the third period, finishing off a pretty passing play from Marcus Nguyen and Ryan McCleary to make it 4-1 Hawks and seal the win.

Now winners of five straight, the Hawks are back in action tomorrow night on the road against Seattle.

QUOTE OF THE NIGHT presented by BBF TECHNOLOGIES:

“I think we’ve just been outworking teams in practice, hitting the weight room, and it’s paying dividends right now and it’ll pay dividends in the future…We just knew we were going to take over the game at some point tonight. We kept to our game plan, kept going and it worked for us.”

Winterhawks forward Luke Schelter