T-Birds open season with 4-1 win at Portland

By Andrew Eide

PORTLAND, Ore — For the third straight season the Seattle Thunderbirds have started their year by beating the Portland Winterhawks.

Seattle took down their rivals 4-1 in the season opener Friday night in front of 8,318 fans at the Moda Center in Portland. Seattle was paced by a goal and an assist from Keegan Kolesar, two goals from Ryan Gropp and two assists by Mathew Barzal.Taran Kozun made 24 saves for the T-Birds as Seattle snapped a frustrating 11-game losing streak in Portland.

“This is a tough place to get a win,” head coach Steve Konowalchuk said. “I thought Kozun was really big for us in the first five or six minutes. I thought we had some young jitters with some uncharacteristic mistakes.”

Both teams relied on young players Friday night. Portland was forced to play a number of rookies as a handful of their regular stars are still in camp with their NHL teams. Seattle features one of the youngest lineups in the WHL and on this night, their young guys got the best of Portland’s young guys.

The T-Birds started slow but began to take control of the game near the end of the first period. They out shot the Winterhawks 37-25 on the night and did a good job of possessing the puck, generating chances and keeping the pressure on Portland and goalie Adin Hill. Hill was appearing in only his fifth WHL game and turned in a stellar performance making 33 saves – several of the spectacular variety.

Despite controlling the game, the T-Birds found themselves behind in the second period. On the power play, Portland’s Layne Viveiros took a shot that Kozun went down to stop. The rebound came to Tyson Predinchuk who was all alone in the slot. He quickly fired the puck into an open net and Seattle found themselves down a goal.

Unlike the final weekend of the preseason where Seattle played well at times but couldn’t score, the T-Birds bounced right back. Seattle drew a penalty and went to work on the power play with just over five minutes left in the second.

Barzal won a face off and then a battle along the boards. He got the puck to Adam Henry who moved to the middle of the ice and fired a hard and accurate shot on net. Kolesar was parked right in front of the net and tipped the puck over Hill’s pad and in. That goal gave the T-Birds a spark that they would carry into the third period.

“Steve’s been saying get in front of the net and be a presence,” Kolesar said of the goal. “Hank got a good shot through and I just got a piece of it.”

The T-Birds would take the lead early in the third period when rookie Nolan Volcan out raced Portland players to the puck as he streaked down the side boards. He floated a back-hand pass to Alexander True in the slot who was able to tip it past Hill. It was the first WHL goal for the import True and the first WHL point for Volcan.

A big moment in the game came two minutes later.

With only a one-goal lead the T-Birds went on a power play with a chance to score and put the pressure on the Winterhawks. They would do just that. Barzal got the puck down low to Kolesar who was stationed along the end boards. He quickly fired a back-hand to Gropp who was alone in the slot. Gropp had Hill at his mercy and picked up his first goal of the game.

“That’s one of the power plays that we’ve been working on actually,” Kolesar said. “Me down low to Gropp in the slot and it happened to work out perfectly.”

In the end it was a strong night for Kolesar. He picked up two big points and was a physical presence all night long. Early in the second period Konowalchuk juggled his lines and put Kolesar on the wing with Brazal and Gropp. The three teamed up on the power play and were dangerous the rest of the night.

“Just changing it up a little bit,” Konowalchuk said of the line change. “I think Gropp’s got good skill, Keegan has some good skill too. I thought maybe the chemistry would work and we would try it out and they had a pretty good game.”

The trio did have a good game and if not for the antics of Hill in net, they might have hooked up for a couple more goals. Gropp would score his second goal with one second left in the game on a two-on-one with Sam McKechnie to put the icing on the cake for Seattle.

Scoring is expected from Barzal and Gropp and they did not disappoint Friday night. The big question for Seattle was who was going to step up and give them secondary scoring. Kolesar is one of the players who has the skill to do it and seeing him open the year strong was a big positive for the T-Birds.

“Good game from him,” Konowalchuk said of his big winger. “We know that’s in him, the challenge is he’s got to come right back out and play that way tomorrow. Because he has a good skill set. I’m not surprised he can bring that, I expect that every night from him.”

The T-Birds struggled in closing out their preseason schedule last weekend. They were able to erase that bad memory with a strong performance in Portland and will hope to carry that start on to their home opener on Saturday night.

“It wasn’t good last weekend,” Konowalchuk said. “Guys came out and played the right way for the most part. We made some mistakes but you know, guys showed they cared when they made mistakes, we had a lot of good back checks to save some goals. You’re not going to play perfect but if you get back it will help you win…it shows we all care that we win.”

Seattle will host the Everett Silvertips Saturday night at the ShoWare Center, face off is at 7 o’clock.

Notes

Seattle was without captain Justin Hickman Friday night as the big winger is still nursing a shoulder injury. The T-Birds also got some bad news as it was announced earlier in the day that Shea Theodore suffered an injury in camp with the Anaheim Ducks and is expected to miss four-to-six weeks.

Talk about missing fire power. The Winterhawks scratched Nic Petan, Oliver Bjorsktrand, Chase De Leo, Anton Cederholm, Keegan Iverson and goalie Brendan Burke because they were all still in NHL camps. Combined, that’s a loss of 150 goals from the lineup.

Seattle was 2-for-7 on the power play Friday night. That’s a good start and their power-play units looked good all night, they moved the puck well and generated a lot of shots.

Kolesar thought he had picked up a Gordie Howe hat trick (a goal, an assist and a fight in the same game) Friday night. In the first period he dropped the gloves with Portland’s Joshua Smith and both players exchanged punches. For some reason the referee’s determined it was only worthy of a double-minor penalty and thus robbed Kolesar of his hat trick. Afterwards the big forward smiled and said “I don’t know about that.”

True had a nice game and scored his first goal. Seattle’s other import, Florian Baltram did not show up on the score sheet but played a strong game. He was all over the ice, skated hard and was robbed by Hill on a couple of occasions.

Not only did Seattle out-shoot Portland on the night, they put the clamps down in the third period. They scored three times in the final frame to ice the game and out shot the Winterhawks 14-4.

Follow Andrew Eide on Twitter @andyeide.

Related

Roster Move: Seahawks add linebacker to practice squadOklahoma says ex-WSU QB John Mateer still best option despite turnoversChiefs star RB Kenneth Walker III downplays his return to SeattleSeahawks Injury Report: Charbonnet takes big step toward returnReport: Former Mariners catcher Mitch Garver retiresNew name emerges in Mariners’ managerial search, per report