T-Birds storm back to beat Victoria 4-2

By Andy Eide

The Thunderbirds saved their best for last on Friday night in Victoria as they came from behind to win their second straight game.

Despite playing well, Seattle trailed by two goals heading into the third period when they exploded for four goals to beat the Royals 4-2. Seattle’s top line was strong again and their defense suffocated the Victoria offense, limiting them to only two shots in the final period.

“We kept playing and kept grinding it out,” head coach Steve Konowalchuk said. “I liked our first period and really the only time I was concerned was when they scored their second goal and we let down a bit but other than that we played a solid game and didn’t let up.”

The T-Birds were the better team for the first 40 minutes of the game and out shot the home team while driving the play. Despite that they found themselves trailing 2-0 as Victoria goalie Coleman Vollrath would stymie them at every turn. The Victoria backstop ended the night making 31 saves on 35 shots.

Going into the third period the T-Birds just stuck to their game plan and never panicked.

“You know you’re going to fall behind in a lot of hockey games,” Konowalchuk said. “So you have to just keep playing and I thought we did that.”

Keegan Kolesar got the T-Birds going early on in the third when we walked out with the puck from the boards and ripped a backhand shot past Vollrath. That sparked the T-Birds and they started buzzing and barely allowed the Royals to posses the puck.

Ryan Gropp would tie the game with just over eight minutes to go when he took a pass form Mathew Barzal and fired a shot past Vollrath for his ninth goal of the year. Seattle would take the lead 52 seconds later when Nolan Volcan tipped a Jerret Smith shot in for his sixth.

The T-Birds got a late power-play chance with just under three minutes to go and would put the game away when Alexander True deflected an Ethan Bear shot in to give the T-Birds a commanding two-goal advantage.

Seattle’s best players were big for them on Friday. The four players they saw drafted in June — Barzal, Gropp, Kolesar and Bear — combined for two goals and four assists.

“They were good,” Konowalchuk said of his top players. “Played a really strong game and that’s what we expect from them. That’s a couple of games in a row now for them and we expect them to play that way every night and you can see what they can do when they work.”

Seattle’s defense was strong from the start of the game and held Victoria to only five shots in the first period and 19 on the night. Seattle sports the lowest average of shots allowed in the league and Friday was more of the same. That made things easy on Logan Flodell in net who made 17 saves in his third straight start.

The game had the makings of a frustrating loss early on as the Royals struck first five minutes into the game when Jack Walker snapped a shot past Flodell. They would extend that lead in the second period when nobody picked up Ryan Gagnon who was all alone in front of Flodell. Dante Hannoun got him the puck and he beat Flodell to give Victoria a 2-0 lead.

Seattle trailed even though they were the better team but never showed any frustration and stuck to what was working for them.

“What you want to avoid is trying to get it all back at once,” Konowalchuk said. “If you do that against a team like that you’re going to turn the puck over and get in trouble.”

The win is the second road win in a row for Seattle and after a couple of tough losses on the road, should give them a boost of confidence back.

“That should help,” Konowalchuk said. “We beat Brandon before we left and now beat the hottest team in the league. I know we were down and had to come from behind I thought we played a solid game.”

Seattle will enjoy this win and remain on Vancouver Island for another match up with Victoria on Saturday night. They know that the Royals will come out firing with vengeance on their mind so they will have to be ready to go.

Notes

The loss was only Victoria’s sixth of the year and second they’ve suffered at the hands of the T-Birds. Seattle also snapped the Royals six-game winning streak.

Barzal and Kolesar have been steadily climbing up the league scoring leaders chart. With 27 points, Barzal is now 10th in scoring and Kolesar is 11th with 25 points.

Seattle ended the night 1 for 5 on the power play which doesn’t seem great on the surface but looks better when you consider they were playing a Victoria club that came into the game with the best penalty kill in the WHL.

The Royals have relied on Vollrath to lead them to their hot start. He has appeared in 19 of their 21 games and it will be interesting to see if he gets the call again on Saturday in back-to-back games.

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