With the end of the Western Hockey League’s regular season less than a month away, the playoff picture is becoming clearer by the day for the six American-based teams of the West’s premier junior development league.
The playoff field for the Western Conference — comprised of the league’s U.S. Division in addition to the five teams who call British Columbia home — is mostly set, with all eight tickets all but punched, barring any last-second surprises.
The conference’s upper echelon stands well apart from the field, with the Portland Winterhawks, Everett Silvertips and Prince George Cougars fighting for the top overall seed with the remainder of the field jockeying for spots four through eight.
The Winterhawks — the league’s southern-most team — remain a perennial powerhouse as they have made the playoffs every season since 2008–09 with four championship appearances and one victory to show for it. Portland sits atop the U.S. Division, led by six skaters at or above a point-per-game and the league’s top goaltender, Czech import Jan Špunar, who boasts a sparkling 1.86 goals-against-average to go along with a .926 save percentage.
Three hours up the I-5 corridor, the reigning champion Seattle Thunderbirds find themselves amid a serious championship hangover after losing eight of their top-10 scorers from a year ago through trades, aging out of the league or joining the professional ranks in the NHL. The Thunderbirds currently sit in a tie for last place in the league with the Kamloops Blazers. The T-Birds have a game in hand over their nearest opponent as they look to avoid becoming the fourth team in WHL history to follow a championship with a subsequent last-place finish.
A little further up the road, the Everett Silvertips maintained their streak of never missing the playoffs as they clinched a postseason berth for the 20th straight year. The Tips’ success this season has come on the back of a number of strong performances from returning players as well as a pair of breakout performances from European import players Dominik Rymon and Julius Miettinen. The Silvertips sit squarely in third place in the west with fewer points and more games played than Portland and Prince George ahead of them, but a whole 16 points clear of fourth place Wenatchee.
Playing their first season south of the border, the Wenatchee Wild sit in fourth place in the Western Conference. Wenatchee inherited a championship-caliber team through relocation when the Winnipeg Ice moved to Wenatchee following their loss to Seattle in the championship series last season.
The Wild started strong in their new home, posting a 20-11-3 record over the first half of the season before trading star forwards — and NHL draft picks — Conor Geekie and Matthew Savoie to the Eastern Conference for a haul of four prospects and 11 draft picks total. Despite the blockbuster moves, the Wild still sit comfortably in a playoff position and are primed to earn home-ice advantage in their first-round matchup if they can maintain the fourth spot in the conference down the final stretch.
Moving east, the Spokane Chiefs have accrued a six-point lead over the Tri-City Americans for the eighth and final playoff spot in the Western Conference. The Chiefs are one year removed from a 21st overall finish (out of 22 teams in the WHL) and are led by the 2024 NHL draft-eligible Berkly Catton, who is currently fifth overall in scoring league-wide with 43 goals and 49 assists through 56 games.
The Americans find themselves behind the eight-ball, needing help from the teams in front of them to make up ground down the stretch. Their most important games of the season come in the final week when they play a pair of games against their rivals from Spokane. The Americans will likely need to keep pace and win both if they are to overtake the Chiefs.
With the playoff field nearly official, the playoff contenders from the U.S. Division will compete to bring the Ed Chynoweth Cup south of the border for just the eighth time since its inception in 1966.
