Thunderbirds double up Royals to earn fourth straight win

By Andy Eide

KENT — While its still early in the season, its safe to say the Seattle Thunderbirds are on a roll.

The T-Birds won their fourth straight game Saturday night as they built a lead and held on to defeat the Victoria Royals 4-2 at the ShoWare Center. Seattle got three goals from their top line and relied on a stiff defense to hold off any Victoria ideas of a come back.

Saturday night was a tale of two lines for Seattle (5-1-1-0).

While the line of Mathew Barzal, Keegan Kolesar and Ryan Gropp provided the offense — each guy scored a goal — it was Seattle’s second line that helped set the tone. Scott Eansor, Nolan Volcan and Jamal Watson shut down Victoria’s top guns, helped generate momentum and were generally an annoyance to the Royals.

“I thought they had a good momentum shift with Volcan getting a big hit there in the second period to get us back on our toes again,” head coach Steve Konowalchuk said. “They’re a huge part of the team and every bit as valuable as the other line, its a good one-two punch.”

As the game wore on, the relentless play of that line seemed to get under the skin of the Victoria (7-3-0-0) players. The Royals seemed to spend more energy talking after the whistle and instead of scoring they were busy chirping the T-Birds players.

“It’s hard to play against those guys because they’re in your face,” Konowalchuk said. “They skate well and their tenacity will really frustrate you.”

Watson is new to the T-Birds and that line but he enjoys the way his line is playing.

“It’s something I’ve really embraced here,” Watson said after the game. “From forecheck and backcheck we play in-your-face hockey and just frustrating a top line like that it’s one of the best things you can do.”

Seattle had a one-goal lead after an early Barzal power-play goal but in the second the Royals had a big push back. They were winning the puck possession game but a strong T-Birds defense and good goaltending from Logan Flodell maintained the lead.

That’s when the top line took over.

Late in the second period they would score a goal that you’re not used to seeing out of three highly skilled players. Victoria goalie Coleman Vollrath made a sprawling save on a Barzal attempt down low but he couldn’t control the rebound. Kolesar was there to bang away at it and eventually the puck got to Gropp’s stick and he potted it for his second goal in as many nights.

It was a greasy goal but it ended up being a huge momentum builder.

“Usually they’re nice plays but we were all digging around,” Kolesar said of the goal. “I don’t know how that goalie made the save on Barzal but I just dug in there to help out and Gropp buried it.”

That line would extend the lead on their very next shift.

Barzal pick pocketed the puck from a Royal’s player and quickly raced back into the Victoria zone. A defender followed him and Barzal dropped the puck back to Kolesar who fired a deadly wrist shot past Vollrath for his fifth goal of the season.

That gave Seattle a three-goal lead heading into the final period but they still would have some work to do.

Victoria’s Ethan Price got Victoria on the board early in the period with a nice wrist shot and five minutes later Jared Dmytriw scored on a back door play — just like that it was a tight 3-2 game.

Seattle would keep battling however and would get the insurance goal with just under five minutes left. It was a big goal but came with some good natured controversy.

Watson had the puck and chipped it ahead to himself where his speed created a two-on-one chance. He attempted to slide the puck over to Volcan but a Victoria defender got a piece of it. The puck came back to Watson in close and both he and Volcan swung their sticks at it. The puck went in, both players celebrated but neither was sure who actually scored the goal.

Officially the goal was credited to Volcan and Watson afterwards was all smiles about the play.

“I have no idea,” he said with a laugh. “I whacked at it and Volcan picked it out of the air. He came over and said ‘I think I stole that one from you’ so I think he got it but it’s not a big deal, two points on the board.”

The goal gave the T-Birds four straight wins and also kept their record at home perfect — winning all four home starts this year. Seattle enjoys one of the better home ice advantages in the WHL with loud crowds that the players feed off of.

“When a team comes in they know it’s going to be a tough game,” Watson said. “We’ve grinded out some wins, we’ve exploded for offense, everyone knows that when they come in here its not going to be an easy game and they’re going to have to work hard to earn it.”

The T-Birds earned it Saturday night and will now get ready for one more home game before hitting the road. They will host the Tri City Americans on Wednesday night and will look to extend their win streak to five against a U.S. Division foe.

“We’re going to enjoy the win here tonight and tomorrow,” Konowalchuk said. “There’s a lot of good things to take from it but there’s still some things to work on. A couple of key mistakes there that lead to goals where maybe the mindset needs to be a little bit different but overall I just want to be positive about this game and come back to work on Monday.”

Game Notes

Seattle’s power play continues to generate goals. Barzal’s goal in the first was on the power play and the T-Birds ended the night 1 for 4 with the man advantage. They’ve scored power-play goals in all four wins on their current streak and are now ranked fifth in the league.

Nolan Volcan got credited with the fourth goal and after reviewing the video afterwards it looks it will stay his goal. That gives him goals in three straight games which is the longest streak of his short career. The three goals put him on pace to easily surpass the nine he scored as a rookie last season.

The T-Birds got another solid performance in net, this time from Logan Flodell who picked up his third win and made 21 saves on 23 shots. His biggest save came in the third period when he stoned Jack Walker in close.

Kolesar’s hot start continued Saturday and he has three goals in his last two games. The Columbus Blue Jackets prospect has 12 points in Seattle’s first seven games. “When you play with guys like Gropp and Barzal you have a lot of confidence,” he said Saturday. “It’s easy to play with guys of their caliber. We just play the game hard, we play the game smart.”

Follow Andy Eide on Twitter @andyeide.

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