Giants outlast T-Birds in 1-0 shutout

KENT – The Thunderbirds played a game of chance Saturday night and ended up on the short end of the stick.

The Vancouver Giants beat Seattle 1-0 in front of 4,157 rowdy fans at the ShoWare Center. Vancouver’s lone goal was scored on the power play by Alec Baer in the third period. That goal turned out to be all the offense the Giants would need as backup goalie Cody Porter made 38 saves to earn his first WHL shutout.

The T-Birds couldn’t score but were back-stopped by Taran Kozun, who made 23 solid saves. The win snapped a four-game losing streak for the Giants and was their first win on the road this season.

Saturday night was another in a string of games this season where the T-Birds controlled play, generated numerous scoring chances yet still came up short.

“Some games it seems like everything you shoot goes in, other games you have to work a little harder for it,” T-Birds captain Justin Hickman said. “When you get the chances you really have to bear down.”

The T-Birds suffered from some bad puck luck as well on Saturday. When they were in close, the puck either bounced over a T-Birds stick, went wide or was blocked by the Giants.

“I thought we did a fairly good job of spreading them out, using three guys up top,” head coach Steve Konowalchuk said. “Give them credit if they’re blocking a lot of shots, we still did get shots through, but we didn’t capitalize on the chances.”

The best and perhaps most frustrating example of bad puck luck came midway through the third period. With the score tied and the T-Birds short-handed, it appeared that Mathew Barzal had given them the lead.

He stole the puck and raced toward the Vancouver end, got Porter down on the ice and slid a back-hand shot that appeared to go in. As the crowd was cheering, the officials on the ice were waiving the goal off and play went on. After a replay review it was determined that the puck went through the crease and rebounded off the far post without ever crossing the goal line.

Both Konowalchuk and Hickman said that is what they saw and that the call was correct. Those in attendance at the ShoWare Center did not agree and were quite upset at the no-goal call. All in all, it was a solid effort for Seattle but one that was not good enough in the end.

“There are some good things we did,” Konowalchuk said. “I don’t want to take away from the good things we did. We did push the pace and play at a high tempo, we were in their face.”

Shortly after Barzal’s near miss the Giants would cash in on the power play as Baer was allowed to walk out in front of Seattle’s net from the corner. Once there, he had time to slide the puck past Kozun for his sixth goal of the season. As has been the case in other similar games, one small breakdown cost the T-Birds the game. The T-Birds had played well short-handed earlier in the game. They had killed off the first four Vancouver power plays, but the fifth one would be costly.

“Coming down the stretch we can’t be the team that takes that penalty,” Konowalchuk said. “In that case there he got his stick up … those kinds of penalties we’ve got to start cleaning up.”

After Thursday’s game where the T-Birds erupted for five goals, it felt that maybe the offensive struggles were over. Saturday, they were back to where they were earlier in the year when they weren’t able to capitalize on chances. Konowalchuk has worked with the team to get the puck up high when it has chances as goalies usually have the bottom of the net covered.

“Sometimes its easier said than done if you’ve got guys bearing down on you,” Konowalchuk said. “There’s a few times there we could have tried to get them upstairs.”

The T-Birds will be back in action on Tuesday when they host the Red Deer Rebels at the ShoWare Center.

Notes

• Saturday marked the return of defenseman Evan Wardley to the lineup for Seattle. Wardley had served a seven-game suspension for a hit on Portland’s Nic Petan on Oct. 11. Seattle was without forward Nolan Volcan, who is playing in the U17 Hockey Challenge for Hockey Canada.

• Scott Eansor had his four-game scoring streaked snapped on Saturday night. Eansor and his line had another strong outing defensively and, like the rest of the T-Birds team, created chances on offense.

• The T-Birds’ struggles at home continue. They have only managed two wins in their eight home games to date and Saturday was the second 1-0 shutout they’ve suffered in Kent. They suffered a similar shutout at the hands of the Everett Silvertips in their home opener.

• The T-Birds are hurting for more consistent offense and have to be counting the minutes until defenseman Shea Theodore returns from his rehab stint. Theodore is playing games for the Norfolk Admirals of the AHL and in two games has two assists.

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