The Portland Winterhawks ended the Vacouver Giants' post-season with three goals in 54 seconds at the end of the first period of Game 4.
Portland scored three more goals in a 6-1 rout as the Hawks swept the Giants in four games, ending the best-of-seven series at Pacific Coliseum on March 26.
Peyton Lee stopped 10 shots before Portland鈥檚 slick passing and aggressive skating dismantled the Giants defence. He let in three consecutive shots and was replaced by Jared Rathjen before the period was over.
Rathjen stopped 29 of 32 shots. Portland ended the night with 45 shots to Vancouver's 33.
Carter Popoff scored Vancouver鈥檚 lone goal on a power play, banging home a rebound for his only goal of the playoffs.
Trailing by two goals in the second period, the Giants needed to capitalized said head coach Don Hay.
鈥淲e were right there if we could get the next one,鈥� he said. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 a sign of a good team. They came out and they capitalized on a power play, got the fourth goal and then we really didn鈥檛 generate much after that and they didn鈥檛 let us generate much."
The Giants finished the regular season in seventh place in their conference, a marked improvement from the previous season when they finished last in the WHL.聽
Portland, second in the WHL and one of the best team in the Canadian Hockey League with a 54-11-2-3 record, scored 338 goals this season, the most since 1997-98.
"We probably came up against the wrong team," said Hay. "If there was another team we could have matched up with, I think it would have been a different result as far as how we played."
The Winterhawks advance to the second round of the Western Hockey League playoffs and will meet either the Kelowna Rockets or Tri-City Americans.
