The (36-16-2-3) take on the (29-24-2-1) in Western Hockey League action. Friday, March 3, 7pm PST. Everett, Washington. You can stream the game via the and (or ) audio. The Winterhawks play their 7th straight road game, but they’ve been able to spend the week at home after the first 6. Portland is on a 7-game losing streak, having not won since a 6-3 home win over Tri-City on February 10. The main difference in that 7-game stretch is that they’ve only scored 6 goals, 0. 9 per game as opposed to 3. 7 for the season. They’re down a little bit in shots, 33. 7 as opposed to 38. 0. But the major difference is a . 025 shooting percentage, versus . 097 for the season. Almost 75% less! For the season, Edmonton is, by far, the worst team at . 076. No team goes a long period of time at . 025, or even twice that. Jack O’Brien missed Saturday’s loss in Seattle with an upper body injury. He’s listed as so hopefully this doesn’t turn out to be long-term. It’s a 3-in-3 weekend: Everett on the road and at home Sunday, Tri-City at home Saturday. Everett, Tri-City, and Prince George are battling for fourth, fifth, and sixth. Since Portland plays number six, this weekend will have quite an impact on who they play. Fromm-Delorme is 0-for-47 in his last 11 games, with only 1 point. The rest of Portland’s forwards aren’t quite at that level, but they’re not too far off. Litke is close to returning from a lower body injury. Klassen (59 points/53 games), Stefan (59/55), Fromm-Delorme (57/54), O’Brien (49/55), Litke (36/50), Nguyen (36/55). Cagnoni last week has three good games, one bad, but had no assists, mainly because of how cold the forwards are. They really need McCleary and Alscher to be better defensively down the stretch, and for Sotheran to get a little bit of his offensive game back. Cagnoni (54/56), McCleary (26/55), Sotheran (21/57). Giannuzzi will probably get two games with Spunar one, so it will probably be Giannuzzi for both Everett games. He’s been Portland’s best player recently. Giannuzzi . 904, Špunar . 902. We last saw them New Year’s Eve. Since then they’ve gone 13-7-1-1 (Portland has gone 10-12-0-2). They were the last team to beat Seattle, maybe the last for the regular season. They also beat Red Deer; the rest of their wins are less impressive. Of course they were sellers in a big way at the trade deadline, trading top defenseman Olen Zellweger and solid forward Ryan Hofer to Kamloops for 14 (!) draft picks and players. It’s taken them out of contending status for the season, not that they were there anyway, but with how they’re playing they have a decent shot at winning a playoff round. They have a monster 9-day stretch: 2 with Portland, 2 with Kamloops, 2 with Seattle. If they can get past that they’ll have smooth sailing the rest of the way. If they can’t they’ll end up playing Portland in April. Berezowski, Roest, and Hemmerling are their big guns by far. Hemmerling is actually the hottest with 22 points in his last 16 games and a 4-game point streak. Pelletier came from Swift Current along with a 2nd-round pick in another trade for the future. Roest (73/56), Berezowski (66/50), Hemmerling (59/51), Pelletier (38/53), Heslop (31/54). The trade of Zellweger has had a big impact on the offense they get from their defense. Gibson had 2 assists in their 5-2 win over Victoria last week. Sutter (30/50), Gibson (21/54), Hammell (20/55). When Braden Holt was here, he played almost every game. He was traded for Palmer, and Palmer has started 23 of 24 games. Metzger is a Swiss import, and it’s odd that you would spend an import pick on a backup goalie who plays less than a normal backup. Bodnar was Portland property. He hasn’t played yet and is currently listed injured. Palmer . 891, Metzger . 892. .