Thunderbirds halt skid with 4-1 win at Victoria

A night after coming into the game in relief, Thunderbirds goalie Taran Kozun started the game Tuesday against Victoria and played excellent.

Kozun made 29 saves to back-stop a solid 4-1 victory over the Victoria Royals at the Save-On-Foods Memorial Arena. The win snaps the T-Birds’ four-game losing streak and they picked up two more points on second place in the U.S. Division.

While Kozun was making saves, the T-Birds had a big night from Shea Theodore, who chipped in a goal and two assists. Corey Millette, Jerret Smith and Nolan Volcan also potted goals for Seattle.

The T-Birds were good from start to finish on Tuesday, picking up where they left off in the second half of Monday night’s game. During the four-game losing streak, the T-Birds had been giving up the game’s first goal but Tuesday night they reversed that trend and got the scoring going early on.

Seattle got on the board 1:13 into the game when Millette scored from the face-off circle for his 19th goal of the year. It was just the start the T-Birds needed to set the tone for the rest of the game.

The T-Birds would extend their lead later in the period after Theodore won a puck battle at his own blue line with Victoria’s Greg Chase. He ripped the puck away from Chase and was off to the races up ice. Turning on the jets, he got behind the Royals’ defensemen and ripped a wrist shot past Coleman Vollrath for his 11th goal of the year.

Seattle would end the period up two goals but may have suffered a blow. Keegan Kolesar got hurt after being hit by Taylor Crunk up along the boards. Cruck received a penalty on the play and Kolesar had to leave the game. He did not return and it is unclear if he will be available this weekend.

The second period saw Victoria lose its discipline and take numerous penalties. The T-Birds cashed in on one of the power plays when Smith scored for the 10th time of the season to give Seattle a commanding 3-0 lead. The goal was a career high for Smith, who had only scored four times in his two previous WHL seasons. He quietly has been having a strong year for Seattle, not only scoring but playing against the opponents’ top line most nights.

In the third period the Royals would cut the lead a bit when Joe Hicketts fired a goal from Kozun’s right on the power play. That is as close as Victoria would get, though, and Nolan Volcan would add an insurance tally later in the period.

The win all but assures Seattle a playoff spot as the season winds down. The T-Birds lead Tri-City – currently the last team in playoff position – by 16 points. Tri-City has nine games left and would almost have to win all of them and have Seattle lose its remaining eight games in order to catch the T-Birds.

Seattle will now move on to play the Portland Winterhawks on Friday night in Portland before returning to the ShoWare Center for a matchup with the Kamloops Blazers.

Notes

• Theodore’s big night extends his point streak to eight games. He’s had assists in all eight of those games and had he not missed games early due to injury and then the World Junior Championships, he’d be on pace for an 86-point season.

• Mathew Barzal had his own point streak snapped on Monday night but got back on the score sheet Tuesday with two more assists. Like Theodore, he missed a lot of games due to injury but now is two points away from tying Ryan Gropp as Seattle’s top scorer. He is scoring at a pace that would have led to a 92-point season.

• There may not be a more underrated player that Jerret Smith. He isn’t flashy like his defensive partner Theodore but he is turning in an excellent season. He has always been steady on the back end but this year he’s chipping in offensively. He’s hit career marks in goals and assists and his 33 points this year is nearly double what he’d picked up in his previous two seasons combined.

• Under the old playoff format, Tuesday’s win would have been huge. It pushed the T-Birds past Victoria for the fourth spot in the Western Conference. That would have meant home ice in the playoffs for the first round against the now fifth-place Royals. With the new format, the only way that Victoria and Seattle would play each other is if both reached the conference finals.

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