T-Birds rally for shootout win over Spokane

KENT – The Thunderbirds needed to work extra time Tuesday night to beat a tough Spokane Chiefs team at the ShoWare Center.

After a scoreless overtime period, the Zambonis came out to clear the ice for the shootout. While he waited, T-Birds goalie Taran Kozun bent over in concentration at the bench. Team Captain Shea Theodore skated over and leaned in for a lengthy private discussion.

“I was just asking him for a little tip and what his thoughts were,” Theodore said. “Just settle him down as well. I know he’s a good goalie and he played real well for us.”

The talk worked out as Kozun would stop all five Chiefs shooters to propel Seattle to its eighth win in its last 10 games as the T-Birds came back to win 5-4. Kozun ended the night making 22 saves to pick up his 19th win on the season.

“It was a crazy game,” head coach Steve Konowalchuk said. “Good third period. I thought we came out the way we needed to play.

There were times Tuesday night where it looked bad for the T-Birds (21-16-2-3). After jumping out to a 2-1 lead in the first period, the Thunderbirds slogged their way through a second period that would see them give up the lead.

It started 22 seconds into the middle frame when Liam Stewart fired a shot past Kozun to punctuate an aggressive Spokane rush. That tied the game and put the T-Birds on their heels. The T-Birds’ game plan fell apart and they struggled to manage the puck in their own end. The result was turnovers and Spokane chances.

Cory Millette seemingly stemmed the tide with his second goal since joining the T-Birds, but the momentum failed to swing. Trailing again by a goal, Spokane kept picking up T-Birds turnovers and generating chances. That forced Seattle to take a penalty and 16-year-old phenom Kailer Yamamoto capitalized with his 17th goal of the year.

With just under 4 minutes left in the period, the Chiefs (23-15-3-1) took the lead on Adam Helewka’s 25th goal of the year. Helweka has now scored in eight straight games for Spokane and the goal was the final blow in a period in which Seattle was out-shot and out-played.

“The second period was one of the worst we’ve had in a long time,” Konowalchuk said. “We weren’t working and we weren’t physical.”

Konowalchuk rallied his troops between periods and whatever speech he gave paid off.

“The message was we need to play the way we need to play,” Konowalchuk said. “That’s not good enough and our veteran guys need to step up and I think we saw that.”

Seattle came out on fire in the third, got its game plan back on track, managed the puck and controlled the game. The T-Birds held onto the puck and fired 14 shots to Spokane’s three.

“We really slacked off as a group in the second,” Theodore said. “But we really regrouped in the third. We were only down by one so it wasn’t impossible.”

After several close calls – and great saves by Spokane goalie Garret Hughson – the T-Birds finally broke through. After Ethan Bear stole the puck in his own end he got it up to Lane Pederson, who had a head of steam. Pederson flung it to Nolan Volcan, who fired a hard shot that Hughson got a piece of but couldn’t keep from trickling over the goal line.

That would send the game to overtime and eventually the shootout, where the first four shooters for each squad were denied. Keegan Kolesar came on to try and give Seattle the advantage. He made a nice move to get Hughson down and then scored on a nice backhanded roof shot. Kozun would then stone Spokane’s Kolten Olynek for the win as the team and 4,627 fans celebrated.

“I had just seen (Donovan Neuls) go blocker side,” Kolesar said of his conversion. “So I thought I might try to fake him out and try back-hand; it worked.”

Kolesar and his linemate, Ryan Gropp, had a strong game. Gropp got the T-Birds on the board in the first when he tipped a Shea Theodore shot past Hughson. It was Gropp’s 16th of the year and the ninth time in the last 10 games that Seattle has opened the scoring.

The T-Birds would extend their lead to 2-0 on the power play when Kolesar tipped an Ethan Bear shot past Hughson. The Chiefs would cut the lead in half late in the first when Riley Whittingham banked a shot off of Kozun and in.

Theodore picked up an assist on both of Seattle’s first-period goals and now has seven points in the three games he’s played since returning from the World Junior Championships. He also moved past former T-Bird Thomas Hickey into second place all-time among defenseman scoring for the franchise.

“I don’t know, we’re focused on the two points tonight,” Theodore said humbly. “That’s the most important two points we got and that’s all I can say.”

The T-Birds have now completed a stretch of 13 games where they played 11 against division opponents. They’ve won seven of those as points become critical.

“It’s about getting points but we know who we want to be in the mix with,” Konowalchuk said. “We want to be towards the top of our division and they’re ahead of us. We don’t try to run and hide, we don’t want to blow off the magnitude of the game.”

Notes

• Center Alexander True left the game in the second period with an undisclosed injury. Konowalchuk did not have a status update for him but he did not return to the play.

• Theodore now trails Craig Channell by eight points for the top spot on Seattle’s all-time defenseman scoring list. Channell played for the Seattle Breakers from 1979-1982, which means that no defenseman has scored more than Theodore while wearing a Thunderbirds sweater.

• Nolan Volcan’s game-tying goal in the third period was his second marker in as many games as the 16-year-old rookie now has six on the season.

• Seattle has a tough matchup in its next game on Friday in Kelowna against the Rockets. Kelowna is the best team in the WHL, and perhaps the CHL, and the game will be nationally televised in Canada by Sportsnet.

• The T-Birds have been playing with more discipline of late. Tuesday night they only were short-handed twice and now only five times over their last three games. They are one of the stingiest five-on-five teams in the league, so staying out of the box gives them a chance to win every night.

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