Buttazzoni scores a beauty as Hawks make history

It’s Mardi Gras on the Memorial Coliseum ice as Winterhawks celebrate Diego Buttazzoni’s game-winning goal in the second overtime of their first-round WHL playoff victory over Prince George (Kai Brown photo)

It wasn’t the longest sporting event ever. John Isner and Nicolas Mahut once went 11 hours at Wimbledon, Isner prevailing 70-68 in the fifth set. In football, I watched Illinois beat Penn State 20-18 in nine overtimes in 2021. In the NHL playoffs back in ’36, the Detroit Red Wings took six overtimes to vanquish the Montreal Maroons 1-0.

But Wednesday’s Game 4 of the first-round WHL playoff series between the Winterhawks and Prince George Cougars at Memorial Coliseum was a marathon by any definition.

Four hours and 11 minutes after the opening face-off and following nearly 98 minutes of hockey, Diego Buttazzoni put an end to the longest game in Portland franchise history.

Buttazzoni’s goal off a classic feed from Kyle Chyzowski with 2:03 left in the second overtime gave Portland a 5-4 victory and a 3-1 lead in the best-of-seven series.

Those remaining among the crowd of 3,929 — hey, it was a school night — were left almost as breathless as the players after the ice battle for the ages.

“Never experienced one like that before,” said Kyle Gustafson, Portland’s first-year head coach but for 20 seasons a Winterhawks assistant.

Neither had anyone in team history. The previous long game in Hawk history was 96 minutes and 21 seconds of a game in March 2003. Buttazzoni’s game-winner came at 11:17 p.m., sending it perilously close to becoming a game that extended into Thursday.

Buttazzoni put the ultimate biscuit in the basket off a carom off the end boards on the long pass from Chyzowski, a play suitable for framing.

“I saw Chyz get full possession down the side,” said the 5-9, 185-pound Buttazzoni, a 19-year-old center from Langley, B.C., who now has four goals and four assists in the series. “I decided to take off. Luckily, he saw me flying and made a great play off the boards — a perfect bank off the wall with me in the middle there, and I snuck it through.”

Through most of the season, Chyzowski and Buttazzoni played on the same line. Not in this series, however. But Gustafson played a hunch and had them together when it counted in the second extra session.

“Diego and Chyz have a lot of chemistry,” the Hawks coach said. “I was trying to find a way to get them together without tinkering too much.

Diego Buttazzoni is all smiles after scoring the game-winner in the second overtime, capping the Winterhawks’ 5-4 first-round playoff victory over Prince George at Memorial Coliseum (courtesy Keith Dwiggins/Winterhawks)

“When you think about Winterhawks DNA, we play fast. We play that stretch game. Chyz has probably made that pass 200 times in his career. It wasn’t by accident. It was predictable from how we play. We run a lot of those reps in practice.”

After Buttazzoni beat Prince George goaltender Joshua Ravensbergen for the biggest goal of his career, the Coliseum erupted in noise. Suddenly there was a mob scene on the ice, with every Winterhawk player in a scrum around Buttazzoni by the scorer’s table. The celebration lasted several minutes, a combination of delirium and the end of exhausting but exhilarating experience.

“It was awesome,” Buttazzoni said. “That’s what you play for. All these guys are my brothers. I love them to death. All the boys were in there, so fired up. I love to see the smiles on their faces. That fires me up, too.”

There were plenty of other heroes on this night. From the losing side there was Ravensbergen, who had 51 saves. He came into Game 4 with a 5.99 goals-against average in the series, but NHL Central Scouting ranked him at midseason as the top North American junior goalie for a reason.

NEW: The Dean of Portland Sports is now on BlueSky.

“He is an elite goalie in the league — a projected first-rounder,” Gustafson said. “He settled into the game. It was a great response game for him. I don’t think (the Cougars) were necessarily happy with his performance the first three games, but he was outstanding tonight. He looked calm and comfortable, but we were able to get the big one by him.”

Chyzowski was the offensive catalyst for the Hawks through the regular season, finishing fourth in the WHL in scoring with 41 goals and 64 assists in 66 games. The 5-10, 170-pound center has kept the momentum going in this series, totaling two goals and eight assists. He had a goal and three helpers Wednesday night, the last one the biggest of the season so far.

Ryan Miller had what might have been the goal of the season for the Hawks — and certainly in his career — near the end of regulation. Prince George had gone ahead 4-3 on a power-play goal by Carson Carels with 1:54 left, and things looked dire before Miller came to the rescue. With Portland in desperation mode and playing a man advantage after Gustafson pulled goalie Ondrej Stebetak for a sixth attacker, Miller -- a 17-year-old right wing — scored the equalizer from just outside the crease with 24.6 seconds remaining. It was Miller’s first goal of the playoffs.

Winterhawks right wing Ryan Miller is mobbed by teammates after scoring with 24.6 seconds left in regulation to force overtime (courtesy Keith Dwiggins/Winterhawks)

“Great job by Miller,” Buttazzoni said. “We were doing everything we could, getting pucks on net. Then we got a lucky bounce and a good rebound from Ryan.”

Then there was Stebetak, the rookie goalie from Czechia, who gave his best performance of the season with 49 saves. The 6-1, 165-pound 17-year-old came up big after Chyzowski was whistled for a high-sticking penalty with 4:37 on the clock in the second overtime, putting the game in peril for the Hawks. The Cougars had several good scoring chances and Stebetak cooly turned them away like a veteran.

“Ondrej made the saves when we needed him the most,” Gustafson said. “The flurry that he had on that penalty kill (in double overtime) is probably the best I have seen him play. It lifted our players’ spirits. The way he was able to hold down the fort … he stood tall.”

“He was huge all night,” seconded Buttazzoni. “He has been a rock all year. He has always been buzzing for us. He had a big PK in the (second) OT, made some unreal saves. I tip my cap to him.”

Game 4 was hard-fought and as close as a game can be. Portland outshot Prince George 56-53. Three times the Hawks held leads — at 1-0, 2-1 and 3-2 — and the Cougars rallied to tie each time, and go ahead the final time.

“That is your typical playoff game,” Gustafson said. “You have to manage momentum swings. We had a taste of it in Game 1 when we had a significant lead (5-2 entering the third period) and let them claw back and beat us in overtime (7-6). That was a little bit of inexperience, a little bit of not managing the game properly and a lot of it momentum. When you have it, you gotta keep it. When you don’t have it, you gotta get it back.”

Five goals were scored on power plays — three by Prince George, two by Portland.

Ondrej Stebetak makes one of several outstanding saves in the second overtime. The 17-year-old goaltender from Czechia made 49 saves in Portland’s 5-4 Game-4 playoff win (courtesy Keith Dwiggins/Winterhawks)

“Special teams were a big deal tonight,” Gustafson said. “We were good on the power play. Credit to our guys to draw the penalties through the hard work. We weren’t happy with our PK … but if there was a turning point in the game in (the second) overtime, it was killing that last penalty.”

Portland won all four regular-season matchups with Prince George, though all were close. If the Cougars have a bit of a complex against the Hawks, it is for a reason. The last time Prince George beat them in a playoff series was in 1997. Portland won series in 2001 (4-2), 2017 (4-2), 2022 (4-0) and 2024 (4-2).

Prince George (41-24-4-2) entered the series as the No. 4 seed in the Western Conference and had homecourt advantage against No. 5 Portland (36-28-3-1). When the Hawks won Game 2 at Prince George 5-2, they seized the edge in the series.

Now they can close out the series in Game 5 Friday night at the Coliseum.

“It would be huge for us to finish this in five,” Buttazzoni said.

The Cougars will put everything they have on the line to try to force a Game 6 and bring the series back to their arena.

“Our mantra all playoffs has been, we have to wipe the slate clean after every game,” Gustafson said. “I know that sounds cliche, but in a playoff series, you have to have short-term memory.

“It was really important to get this win, but we can’t get too high. Our whole focus will be, what can we do in the next game?”

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