Thunderbirds beat Everett, acquire goalie Rylan Toth from Red Deer

KENT – The Thunderbirds played their second-to-last preseason game Friday night, but the talk at the ShoWare Center was more about the move they made earlier in the day.

Seattle was shorthanded on Friday as it hosted the Everett Silvertips. The T-Birds managed to survive nine Silvertips power plays and held on to win 3-2 in a shootout. Finnish import Sami Moilanen scored twice and rookie goalie Carl Stankowski made 27 saves to pick up his third preseason win.

“When you have four on D, you’ve got to stay out of the box and we deserved some of those penalties; some of them were just careless penalties,” head coach Steve Konowalchuk said. “Overall, pretty happy. We did a good job of helping our defense out in the first couple of periods.”

Just a couple of hours before the game, the T-Birds announced that they had acquired goalie Rylan Toth from the Red Deer Rebels in exchange for a third-round bantam pick in 2017. The 20-year-old Toth gives Seattle their full complement of over-agers as he joins Scott Eansor and Cavin Leth on the roster.

Toth was 26-15-0-1 with the Rebels last season and after suffering a late season injury returned to play in the playoffs and the Memorial Cup. He posted a 2.67 goals-against-average and a .912 save percentage.

“He’s a good veteran goalie,” Konowalchuk said of Toth. “I think mentally, as everybody grows up in this league, it’s still the older guys that are a big part of your team, especially goalies. You’ve been through it a few times and it helps.”

The move gives the T-Birds four goalies, which is two too many, so there are more moves to be made. With this move, 19-year-old Logan Flodell, who had been slated to be the No. 1 goalie this year, will now move down the depth chart. Rookies Ryan Gilchrist and Stankowski are also still on the roster with Stankowski seeing action on Friday night.

Stankowski has made a strong bid to make the team and was good again on Friday. He improved his preseason record to 3-0 in the win. With that record he has a goals-against of 2.02 and a save percentage of .926. At only 16, he continues to show the poise and confidence of a player much older.

“He’s under control,” Konowalchuk said of Stankowski. “He usually gives himself a chance to recover. He’s upright and not down on his butt too often.”

As good as Stankowski has been, Seattle’s crease will now belong to Toth.

Toth has appeared in 100 WHL regular season games and last year took the Rebels to the Eastern Conference finals. He started all four games in the Memorial Cup  – the largest stage in junior hockey – last spring and went 2-2 with a 2.99 goals-against.

“You’re getting a player from another winning organization,” Konowalchuk said. “He was with the right culture and he should fit in to what we’re trying to do here.”

Konowalchuk added that the team wouldn’t carry four goalies for very long as the regular season is now fast approaching. With Flodell’s age and experience, the T-Birds may look to move him to a club where he will be able to get more playing time as well. Clearly, there are more moves of some sort coming.

With players away at NHL camps, the T-Birds only had 11 forwards and four defensemen in the lineup Friday night. Forward Luke Osterman moved back to give them a fifth defenseman and had to log a ton of minutes.

Moilanen picked up his first preseason goal after the T-Birds forced a turnover at the Everett blue line. Nolan Volcan and Elijah Brown worked the puck in front, where Moilanen snapped it past Silvertips goalie Lasse Peterson to give Seattle the lead.

It was an exciting moment for the young Finn who lost an edge and fell to the ice during his goal celebration.

“It was a little bit comical when he slipped on the banana peel,” Konowalchuk said with a chuckle.

Everett evened the game up in the second period on a two-man advantage when Lucas Skrumeda beat Stankowski from the point.

The T-Birds, and Moilanen, took the lead later in the period when he put back a rebound after defenseman Jarret Tyszka pinched in and took a shot from in close. Everett got the game back even in the third period on a power-play goal by Riley Sutter.

Seattle killed off yet another power play to start the overtime period and neither team would score, sending the contest to the shootout. In the shootout, Alexander True was the only shooter to convert as the T-Birds improved their preseason record to 4-2-0-0.

The T-Birds will wrap up their preseason schedule Saturday night in a rematch with the Silvertips at Everett’s Xfinity Arena.

Notes

• Konowalchuk wasn’t happy with the number of penalties his team took. It was a widespread issue on Friday as no player took more than one penalty and in total 10 of the 16 T-Birds skaters were nabbed for a two-minute minor.

• Both Everett goals came on the power play, but overall Seattle did a good job on the penalty kill. Most notable was Leth, who blocked numerous shots, which at times caused him a great deal of pain.

• Neither Toth or newly acquired Layne Bensmiller had made it to Seattle yet and it’s unclear if either will play on Saturday, so they may have to wait until opening night to make their T-Birds debuts.

• The T-Birds will be shorthanded again on Saturday, so staying out of the penalty box will be a focus.

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