T-Birds kick away late lead to lose 4-3 in Tri City

By Andrew Eide

The Thunderbirds played 58 great minutes of hockey Friday night in Kennewick against the Tri City Americans. Unfortunately for them, hockey games are 60 minutes affairs.

With a commanding 3-1 lead heading down the stretch the T-Birds gave up two late goals and would lose 4-3 in the shoot out. Richard Nejezchleb and Brian Williams picked up the late tallies for the Americans and Nejezchleb’s shoot-out conversion was enough for the improbable come back.

“It was definitely a game I thought in the third period we were in control of,” head coach Steve Konowalchuk said afterwards. “A couple big mistakes there to let them win the game.”

Things started to unravel for the T-Birds with just over two minutes left in the game. Tri City had pulled goalie Evan Sarthou for the extra skater. Roberts Lipsbergs — making his season debut for Seattle — had the puck and took a shot at the empty net. He missed and since he was a couple strides on the wrong side of the red line, icing was called.

With the face off back in the Seattle end the Americans peppered T-Birds goalie Taran Kozun with the puck. Nejezchleb was able to poke a loose puck past Kozun to cut the lead to one with 2:02 left in the game. Kozun ended the night making 34 saves and probably deserved a better fate.

Trailing now by only a goal the Americans would tie the game 31 seconds later — at the 18:29 mark — when Williams snapped a shot off a face off that Kozun couldn’t get. Just like that, 58 minutes of great work was erased.

“One was off the face off, one was just getting pucks to the net on the 6-on-5,” Konowalchuk said. “We’ve got to do a better job down there.”

It looked like the T-Birds were on their way to winning their seventh game out of the last eight. It ended up with them scratching their heads and looking to bounce back on Sunday when they host a rematch with the Americans.

The loss marred the return of defenseman Shea Theodore. Playing in his first game since winning gold at the World Junior Championships, Theodore was a force. He got Seattle on the board in the first just moments after a Seattle power play ended. Theodore fired a wrist shot that Sarthou could not see through a screen.

After the Americans tied the game later in the first on a goal by Tyler Morrison, Theodore would give Seattle a lead in the second. This time it was a power-play goal and once again it was a nice wrist shot from Theodore at the point. Theodore would pick up his third point of the night when he assisted on Seattle’s third goal, a power-play marker by Jerret Smith.

The two goals were Theodore’s third and fourth and he now has 175 career points with the T-Birds. That puts him two away from second place on the all-time scoring list for Seattle defenseman — a spot currently held by Thomas Hickey. Theodore is 12 points behind the top spot held by Craig Channell.

“He played a good game,” Konowalchuk said of his star defenseman. “He was a difference maker, he had a good game for us.”

With the score tied the two teams would play a scoreless overtime period which sent the game to the shoot out to be decided. Nejezchleb was the first shooter and was able to beat Kozun with a strong delayed move. Sarthou would stop all three of the T-Birds shooters to give the Americans the win.

The T-Birds have a day to regroup before taking on Tri City again, Sunday afternoon at the ShoWare Center.

“We’ll learn from what we did there at the end of the game,” Konowalchuk said. “We’ll take the positives out of it. Get the emotion back next game.”

Notes

Lipsbergs was making his season debut after being sent back to Seattle by the Stockton Thunder of the ECHL. .

Newly acquired Corey Millette was not in the lineup Friday as he did not arrive in time to crack the lineup. He should make his T-Birds debut Sunday.

Ryan Gropp and Mathew Barzal were also scratches as Gropp has an upper body injury and Barzal continues to rehab his injured knee.

It was the second straight game against Tri City where the Americans tied the game late, with the extra attacker. A week ago, in Kent, Lucas Nickles scored with 45 seconds left in the third to send the game into overtime. That night Seattle would prevail in the shoot out.

Follow Andrew Eide on Twitter @andyeide.

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