Thunderbirds salvage point Saturday night with two goals in dying seconds

PORTLAND, Oregon – Trailing 2-1 and his team’s net empty, Seattle Thunderbirds forward Matthew Wedman found himself alone in the Portland zone Saturday night.

The clock ticked down to five seconds and Wedman’s teammate, Jarret Tyszka, got the puck at the top of the zone. Wedman frantically began slapping his stick on the ice.

“I was just trying to get Tyszka’s attention,” Wedman said. “I was yelling at him, (Graem) Bryks said he heard me in the stands yelling.”

Tyszka spotted Wedman and slid the puck to the Seattle center as the clock hit three seconds. Wedman took a one-timer that beat Winterhawks goalie Joel Hofer to tie the game. The clock at Portland’s Veteran Coliseum read 2.1 seconds as Wedman raised his stick to celebrate.

“That’s my first slap shot goal in my career,” Wedman said of his 19th goal of the season. “It felt pretty good.”

The goal was the second for Seattle in an 18 seconds span, as Simon Kubicek scored with 20 seconds left, and sent the game to overtime. While the Thunderbirds earned an important point in the standings, they weren’t able to get the second as Portland’s Seth Jarvis would win the game 3-2 in overtime when he converted a penalty shot at the 2:19 mark.

While technically a loss, it felt like a win.

“Great heart, great no quit attitude,” Seattle head coach Matt O’Dette said. “We’ve got to build off that momentum that we created and carry that into tomorrow and this time, start off the game with that kind of passion.”

Seattle (17-22-5-1) stayed within one point of the last playoff spot in the Western Conference but the game may have proved costly as captain Nolan Volcan suffered an injury in the second period. After a hit along the boards, the 20-year-old fell to the ice and had to leave the game with an apparent upper body injury.

There wasn’t an initial update as to his status moving forward.

“Obviously Volcan is a big part of our team, fingers crossed on that,” O’Dette said. “Other guys stepped up and however it shakes out, we need a great effort from everybody.”

Portland (29-13-3-2) also saw a key player go down with an injury that could drastically affect its playoff hopes. Cody Glass, one of the best players in the league, was hurt after getting tangled awkwardly with a Thunderbirds player late in the third period. He had to be helped off the ice by two teammates and did not return to the game.

Prior to that injury, the Thunderbirds had held Glass, along with the league’s leading scorer Joachim Blichfeld, off the scoresheet. It would be two of Portland’s supporting cast that teamed up to give the Winterhawks their 2-0 lead.

Lane Gilliss would open the scoring on a feed from Robbie Fromm-Delome at 16:41 of the first period and the two hooked up again in the second period after some confusion during a Seattle line change. This time it would be Fromm-Delome that scored on an assist from Gilliss.

The Thunderbirds struggled to generate offense and chances through the first two periods. They were out shot by the Winterhawks 35-11 over the game’s first 40 minutes. Seattle goalie Cole Schwebius kept Seattle in the game by making several quality stops – on his way to a 38 save night.

“Schwebs was awesome tonight,” Wedman said of his goalie. “I love to see that. He works so hard and it’s great to see him get rewarded like that. He was huge all night.”

Despite losing their captain, and leading scorer, to injury, the Thunderbirds came out strong in the third period. They got back to their game plan of getting pucks deep and forcing the Winterhawks to play in their own end. They would out shoot Portland 12-5 over the final 20 minutes but up until the last minute were held at bay by Hofer, who ended the evening by recording 21 saves.

“We’re in a playoff race,” O’Dette said. “Up until that point of the game, this hadn’t been the team that had all the passion and life of the past couple weeks. That kicked in, in the third.”

It wasn’t looking good for Seattle as time ran down but Kubicek fired a shot through traffic with 20 seconds left in the game to cut the lead. It was the defenseman’s eighth of the season.

Seattle had already used its timeout so there was little time to prepare for what would be Wedman’s tying goal.

“It was just go, go, go,” Wedman said “Just get everything to the net…and we pulled it off. Its desperation time and you have to play desperate hockey. You have to win those big draws to make big plays.”

Wedman won the draw, his 16^th of the night, and Tyszka retrieved it to set up the tying score.

“He kind of took it upon himself to put the team on his back there and get the guys energized in the third period,” O’Dette said of Wedman. “That’s what we’ve seen from him all year long. I don’t think the first 40 was his best either but he kicked it up a notch.”

Jarvis set up the game-winner for Portland after he sped around the Seattle defense during the three-on-three overtime period. He was tripped deep in the Thunderbirds zone but rather than a two-minute minor penalty, the officials awarded him a penalty shot that he would score on for the win.

It was a call that left the Thunderbirds perplexed.

“That’s not a clear cut breakaway, that’s for sure,” O’Dette said of the call. “I don’t know, a bizarre call. They didn’t say anything to me, it happened so fast.”

Seattle will move on for a big home game Sunday evening against the Kamloops Blazers. Both clubs will be playing their third game in as many nights and Seattle has a chance to jump back ahead of Kamloops in the standings.

“It’s a playoff game really,” O’Dette said of Sunday. “If you can’t get motivated for that, it’s a problem.”

Notes

• Both teams failed to score on the power play Saturday night with each going 0-for-6.

• Tyszka set up both of Seattle’s goals and he has three points in the last two nights.

• The 38 saves recorded by Schwebius were the second highest in his WHL career. He had previously kicked out 39 shots, in his first career start, in a game at Everett.

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