GOING TO GAME 7
EDMONTON (CP) – Keegan Iverson scored the overtime winner as the Portland Winterhawks erased a three-goal, third-period deficit to snap a three-game losing skid and defeat the Edmonton Oil Kings 6-5 on Sunday, sending the Western Hockey League championship to the limit.
Portland trailed 5-2, but battled back to tie the game up. The Winterhawks completed the comeback when Iverson tipped a Dominic Turgeon shot past Edmonton goalie Tristan Jarry 7:23 into overtime.
Mathew Dumba had a pair of goals and Anton Cederholm, Keoni Texeira and Derrick Pouliot also scored for the Winterhawks, who had dropped three straight after owning a 2-0 advantage to start the best-of-seven finals. Prior to the three losses in the finals, the Winterhawks had only lost three games in their previous 45 outings.
Henrik Samuelsson and Edgars Kulda each had two-goal games and Curtis Lazar also scored for the Oil Kings, who lost for the first time at home in the playoffs, dropping to 10-1.
The seventh-and-deciding game of the WHL final will take place Monday in Portland. Edmonton carried over the momentum from their previous three wins to get off to a great start in the contest in front of a crowd of 11,902 at Rexall Place.
NOTES: It’s the third consecutive season that the Oil Kings and Winterhawks have met in the WHL Championship Series. Edmonton defeated Portland in seven games to win in 2012, while Portland won in six games last year. It is Portland’s fourth consecutive trip to the league championships … After going down in the first two games of the series, Edmonton bounced back to win the next three heading back to Game 6 on Sunday, allowing just four goals in the three games against the WHL’s top scoring team in the regular season … The Winterhawks came into Sunday’s game having only gone 1-20 on the power play … It is just the second time in league history that two teams have met in the WHL final three years in a row. The last time was when the original Edmonton Oil Kings (who ended up moving to Portland to become the Winterhawks) played the Flin Flon Bombers three times from 1969-71.
