T-Birds upend Royals 5-4 to end first half of season

KENT – With just under 4 minutes to go in the game, it was looking bleak for the Thunderbirds. They had allowed the Victoria Royals to score four unanswered goals, erasing a 3-0 lead, and were face-to-face with another frustrating loss.

Things would be different in this one however as Donovan Neuls and Ryan Gropp would score late to give the T-Birds an exciting 5-4 win over Victoria. The win snapped Seattle’s two-game losing streak and sends them home on the holiday break with a good taste in their mouths.

“That’s got to be one of the most fun games this year,” Justin Hickman said. “It’s nice not to have another 2-1 game where we are coming up short. I thought everyone battled hard.”

Hickman was part of the game-winning score. Keegan Kolesar threw the puck on net and was stopped by goalie Coleman Vollrath. Hickman banged away at the rebound and the puck ended up on Gropp’s stick. Gropp roofed it for his 14th goal of the season to give the T-Birds the win.

“We had lots of bodies on net and lucky enough it popped out to me and I buried it,” Gropp said of the winner. “The goalie was kind of covering the bottom part so I knew I had to get it up.”

It was the 15th one-goal game that Seattle has played this year but instead of coming up a goal short, they found a way to come back and win it.

“We don’t need too many of those (games),” head coach Steve Konowalchuk joked. “Fun now and the guys are excited…That team kept coming as well, didn’t give up. But at the end of the day its a good win.”

Seattle ended the first half of the year with an exciting back-and-forth affair. After a scoreless first period the two teams would combine to score five goals in the second period.

The T-Birds got on the board first when Hickman calmly knocked in a loose puck in the crease for a power-play goal. A minute later Calvin Spencer wheeled the puck behind the Victoria net and found Lane Pederson in the slot. Pederson would beat Vollrath for his fourth of the year.

Seattle built what looked like a commanding three-goal lead two minutes later when Kolesar tipped an Ethan Bear point shot past Vollrath for another power-play conversion. Vollrath gave up all five goals while making 40 saves for the Royals.

The newly formed line of Gropp, Hickman and Kolesar ended the night combining for three goals and four assists. Hickman has stepped in to play center on that line, despite being a natural winger. Over the last three games it has been the most dangerous line for Seattle.

“It’s been a little bit of a transition,” Hickman said of the position switch. “I didn’t realize quite how much more skating there is than at wing, but it’s been good. It’s easy to play with Keegan and Gropper.”

The move is necessary because Seattle continued to play without injured Mathew Barzal and without Alexander True and Florian Baltram who are at the World Junior Championships. That has left the team short of centers.

“Hickman’s playing good center there, he fits right in,” Konowalchuk said of his captain. “Through these times with injuries and guys gone we put guys in different positions and expect them to get the job done and they’re good enough to.”

Up three goals the Thunderbirds would let up a bit and let the Royals back in the game.

Less than a minute after Kolesar’s goal, Travis Brown picked up a loose puck and flung it through traffic and past goalie Taran Kozun. Late in the period Greg Chase stepped out of the penalty box to find himself behind the defense and leading a two-on-one breakaway. He fed it to Austin Carroll who one-timed a slap shot past Kozun to cut the lead to one. Kozun would end the night with 22 saves.

“A few mental errors there,” Konowalchuk said. “I could see guys were thinking about home a little bit with the Christmas break but we wanted our veteran guys that have been through this Christmas time thing to come up and step up…Our veteran guys really stepped up for us.”

The third period is where things started to look dicey and Konowalchuk could sense the game slipping away. He chose to use his timeout early in the period.

“Just wanted to get everybody buckled down,” he said of the timeout. “I thought they did that and we really had some chances to get that fourth goal and it would have been a much easier game if we had.”

Just missing that one goal has been the theme for Seattle’s season to date. Again on Tuesday they were generating scoring chances on Vollrath, but couldn’t find the goal that would put the Royals away.

The Royals then struck twice in eight seconds midway through the third period to grab the lead. It started when Tyler Soy scored his eighth of the season. On the ensuing face off the Royals got the puck into the Seattle zone and Logan Fisher snuck one past Kozun on the short side.

With the way things have gone over the last week, it would have been easy for the T-Birds to pack it in.

“We were pretty determined to come back in this game,” Kolesar said. “No one was down, we knew what we had to do and I thought we did a good job of answering back there.”

Answer they did. Scott Eansor took a sharp angle shot that Vollrath stopped. The puck rebounded into the air and Neuls back-handed it out of the air and into the net to tie the game up. It was a good night for those two, who played with Nolan Volcan on the wing.

“Big goal to tie it there, that’s huge by that line,” Konowalchuk said. “That’s the kind of tenacity we need out of those guys as a checking line.”

That line would be on the ice with a minute left and pinned the Royals in their own end which kept them from being able to pull Vollrath for the extra skater. Instead time would run out and the T-Birds were officially on vacation with two points in their pockets.

“It is a nice feeling for our guys,” Konowalchuk said. “We worked a really hard game and to come up a goal short again would have been a little bit hard to swallow for a while. I think its something we can build off. We scored goals, we put up a lot of offense and I think it can help us believe going forward and make us a better team.”

Notes

Seattle will now have nine days off as their players will all head home for the holidays. The T-Birds return to action on December 27th when they host Portland.

The power play was working for Seattle on Tuesday and they ended going 2-for-5 on the evening. Giving up power-play goals has been an issue for them but against Victoria they went 3-for-3 on the penalty kill.

Gropp’s goal and assist give him points in seven of his last eight games. Ethan Bear had two assists and he ends the first half with points in eight of his last ten games.

Victoria’s Greg Chase had an interesting night Tuesday. He helped set up three of the Royals four goals but he also got himself in some trouble. Chase ended the night with 17 minutes in penalties which was high-lighted by a five-minute spearing penalty with 18 seconds left in the game. That penalty also carried a game-misconduct with him and he may be subject to further punishment from the WHL.

Seattle Seahawks tight end Luke Willson was on hand Tuesday to drop the ceremonial puck. Willson grew up palying hockey in Canada and showed off a pretty deft wrist shot between periods.

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