Bid for weekend sweep comes up short for Thunderbirds in Portland
Feb 18, 2019, 7:45 AM | Updated: 7:50 am
(Brian Liesse/T-Birds)
PORTLAND, Oregon – Looking to complete a three-in-three weekend sweep Sunday in Portland, the Seattle Thunderbirds were done in by a ‘freebie’.
Down 2-1 early in the second period, Seattle went to the power play with a chance to tie the game and pick up some momentum. But a turnover at the blue line resulted in the league’s top scorer, Joachim Blichfeld, getting behind the Thunderbirds players. He got the puck, raced in on Seattle goalie Cole Schwebius and scored to make it a two-goal contest.
That swung the tide as the Thunderbirds could not fully recover and dropped a 5-2 decision.
“They’re obviously opportunistic and if you let them have opportunities to transition they’re dangerous on the penalty kill when there’s a change of possession,” Seattle head coach Matt O’Dette said of the play. “What we talk about often with freebies, that was a freebie.”
Portland (35-16-3-3) would get two more goals from Blichfeld, for the hat trick, and clinch a playoff spot in the Western Conference while the Thunderbirds missed a chance to pad their lead for the eighth, and final, playoff position in the conference.
Playing for the third time in as many nights, the Thunderbirds were game at times, but a couple of momentum swings would eventually do them in. Matthew Wedman extended his goal-scoring streak to six games with a late score in the second period, but it wouldn’t be enough to spark a comeback.
The Thunderbirds came out strong to start the third period but couldn’t cut into a 4-2 deficit and eventually Blichfeld, a San Jose Sharks prospect, notched his league-leading 48th of the season to complete his hat trick.
“We certainly emptied the tanks,” O’Dette said. “There’s no quit in our guys, a lot of character. We were pushing to try to get back in the game, but we couldn’t get one there and they got the fifth. With a three-in-three weekend for our guys to push like that in the third, I’m happy with the way we responded there.
“We wanted the sweep of the weekend, points are critical…for a three-in-three we played a pretty gritty game.”
Seattle (23-28-5-1) was on the wrong end of the scoreboard and the shot clock as the Winterhawks were credited with 52 shots on goal, which led to Schwebius having to make 47 saves in the loss.
“A lot of credit to Schwebius,” O’Dette added. “He was really good in the net for us.”
Portland is a team that is dangerous transitioning from defense to offense and if pucks don’t get deep, they can turn a game into a track meet in a hurry.
The Thunderbirds ran into some trouble in the transition game, especially on Portland’ first goal which was scored by Michal Kvasnica, in the first period after a turnover at the Winterhawks blue line.
“Puck management could be better,” O’Dette said. “In this building you’re better if you get pucks deep, automatic. You’re in trouble if your turning pucks over, they feed off that. I didn’t think it was terrible but it’s got to be automatic.”
Special teams were also a factor Sunday.
A night after scoring twice on the power play, the Thunderbirds added another on Wedman’s second-period goal, his 32nd, but would also allow Blichfeld to score short-handed. Portland also added two power-play goals of its own to end up 2-for-3 on the night.
The first of those two markers came just over two minutes after Seattle’s Jaxan Kaluski had tied the game at one at 14:07 of the first period. Before the period ended, Josh Paterson would get a feed from Blichfeld in front of the Seattle net and didn’t miss for his 21st of the year.
Blichfeld would add another power-play conversion at 7:44 of the second to build a 4-1 Portland lead.
“They have a good power play,” O’Dette said. “It’s hard to hold them off the board and we could have obviously been better tonight. You can’t give up short-handed goals. I thought our power play did some good things, we got another goal, but you can’t give one back.”
While Sunday’s result was disappointing for the Thunderbirds, the weekend as a whole was a success.
Tasked with three games against quality opponents, getting any points may have felt like a victory. The four points that the Thunderbirds did pick up leaves them with a five-point lead over the Kamloops Blazers in the standings. The Blazers, who will be in action Monday afternoon, do have three games in hand.
“We’re playing good teams,” O’Dette said in summing up the weekend. “Two of the top three teams in our conference there and a really good Red Deer team. Not easy but any points we can get at this time of year, we’re happy with and I thought all in all it was a pretty good weekend.”
Seattle will be off through the week before a road game Friday in Everett and a rematch with Portland at the accesso ShoWare Center on Saturday.
Notes
• Noah Philp saw his six-game point streak snapped Sunday. He had piled up nine points over the course of the streak.
• Andrej Kukuca also saw a streak stopped as he failed to score a goal, ending a stretch of four straight contests where he had.
• Not only did Blichfeld have a hat trick and a four-point evening but he was credited with an astonishing 15 shots on goal.