(Everett, Washington) The Seattle Thunderbirds found themselves in a familiar predicament Saturday afternoon as they surrendered two early goals to the Tri-City Americans. The first came on a wrap-around from Sasha Mutala. That was followed by a power play slap-shot from Kyle Olson.
“Yeah we need to be getting a better start. It’s not a recipe to win every night coming from behind. We’re pretty resilient and we pride ourselves in that no quit attitude. Preseason or not, it’s nice to come back and get a win” said head coach, Matt O’Dette of the 4-3 win.
Sophomore forward Jared Davidson struck for Seattle late in the first period, scoring a power-play goal of his own. It was Davidson’s second goal in as many days.
“Every time you can step on the ice and make a difference, you live for that moment. It’s been a treat lately. Every time you put one in it feels great. Every time the teams scores and the team’s winning it feels awesome,” Davidson said.
Special teams would continue to be a theme in on the afternoon, as it has for most of the games in the tournament to this point. Tri-City restored their two-goal lead early in the second period, as Tyson Greenway banked in a shot off of goaltender Blake Lyda.
Seattle answered with a power-play marker of their own. Rookie standout, Lucas Ciona drew the Thunderbirds within one by deflecting a Simon Kubicek point shot home. Four minutes later, Ciona got his name on the score sheet for the third time when he came around the Tri-City net to the hash-marks on the boards and threw the puck toward the net. Fellow rookie Conner Roulette was there to deflect the puck past Beck Warm.
Seattle’s power play and penalty kill have been in full swing to start the preseason and has been effective, despite nut much time to practice.
“It’s encouraging to see the special teams getting it done. We’ve talked about some concepts that we want to have for special teams. Regardless of not spending any practice time on it, we’ve been showing some video and you know, talk about things that we want to accomplish and focus on both special teams. It wasn’t perfect [today] but I thought there were definitely some improvements over yesterday,” O’Dette said of his teams work on the man advantage and on the penalty kill.
The third period saw no goals and it was looking like the two clubs were headed to the third consecutive overtime of the tournament. That was until Jared Davidson sealed it for the Tbirds with his second goal of the game with 17 seconds left in regulation.
“Won the draw in our zone, (Tyrel) Bauer rimmed the puck around the boards, Mounter (Payton Mount) and (Brendan) Williamson raced to the puck, turned on the jets there, they won the puck battle in the corner, Williamson put the puck on net and the rebound was just sitting there and I put it in,” Davidson said of the game winning goal in the dying second of regulation.
Seattle will complete the weekend when they play, rival (and host) the Everett Silvertips at 7:00 PM at Angel of the Winds tomorrow night.
