The Seattle Thunderbirds have locked up home ice advantage for their first-round playoff matchup with the Kelowna Rockets. They did it with a 4-1win Sunday over Everett, coupled with a Kelowna loss earlier in the day to the Vancouver Giants. Or maybe they actually locked up home ice earlier in the season?
Quite often head coach Matt O'Dette will talk about the value of two points earned early in the season being just as valuable as two points earned in the final week. So, let's go back to a couple of games where the T-birds earned a couple of critical wins that now loom large in their securing home ice advantage versus the Rockets.
December 11th, third to last game before the Christmas break, Seattle at Kelowna. This is the second of back-to-back nights playing up in the British Columbia interior. The previous night Seattle stunned Kamloops up at the Sandman Centre with a convincing 6-1 victory. But it was a costly win as the T-birds lost their captain, Tyrel Bauer, to a knee injury in the third period, an injury that would keep him out of the lineup for 33-games.
Seattle is already missing Sawyer Mynio and Leon Okonkwo Prada so are heading into the game in Kelowna with just five defensemen. To remedy the situation, the T-birds call up affiliated player, 16-year-old, Niko Tsakumis. It will be just his second game in the WHL and first in a month.
The Thunderbirds fall behind, 2-0, after twenty minutes before battling back to take the lead in the second with three goals, including a go-ahead tally from Tsakumis, who scores his first in the WHL. They lead 3-2 after two.
The lead doesn't hold up as the Rockets strike twice in period three to grab a 4-3 advantage with just under seven minutes to play. Down a goal late, missing your captain? Just take the two-game split, get home and heal up your wounded, right? Except if there is one thing we've learned this season about this T-birds team it's that there's no quit in them.
Just seventeen seconds after Kelowna took the lead, Kevin Korchinski ties it up and a minute after that Mekai Sanders strikes. Just like that Seattle has comeback to take the lead late. Scott Ratzlaff and the team then shuts down the Rockets over the final five minutes and the T-birds skate away with a 5-4 win and two big road points.
March 1st, the T-birds are hosting the Rockets at the accesso ShoWare Center. Seattle has dropped three straight games, including 4-3 setback at home to Kelowna two nights earlier. It's looking like the rematch is going to get Seattle the same result. Two of the team's leaders, Bauer and Henrik Rybinski are out of the lineup and midway through the third period the Rockets score to break a 2-2 tie.
As the clock ticks down Kelowna holds their one goal lead. With under two minutes remaining, O'Dette pulls his goalie for the extra attacker and the strategy pays off when Lukas Svejkovsky scores with 61-seconds left, tying the game at 3-3.
Time to prepare for 3-on-3 hockey. Both teams are ready to take the point and settle this in overtime or a shootout, right? Not quite. The T-birds win the ensuing face off and got right back on the attack. With twelve seconds left in regulation, Sam Knazko pounces on a loose puck in front of the Rockets goal and scores. Not only does Seattle win, 4-3, but by winning in the dying seconds of the third they n get the two points, and they prevent Kelowna from getting even one.
Those two come-from-behind wins are now the difference in both the season series against Kelowna (The T-birds finished 3-1 in the four games, outpointing the Rockets, 6-3), and in the Western Conference standings. Had the T-birds not played the full sixty minutes in both those games, they'd be in fifth place staring up at the Rockets and preparing to start the postseason on the road. If they had just "settled" for a different fate late in those games, they'd be sitting on forty wins, not forty two, 88-points, not 92.
Points matter, no matter what point in the season you're at.
Notice anything similar in Seattle's three home wins this season against Everett? Well, the scores are similar. The T-birds won 5-2 back on December 17th, 5-1 January 15th and were 4-1 winners Sunday. Even in their shootout loss back on October 15th, the T-birds scored five goals. But the similarity I'm talking about is the Seattle roster. In those four games, especially in the three wins, Seattle played with a nearly complete and healthy lineup.
If Seattle is to make a deep playoff run, they'll need that full and healthy lineup and they'll need those kinds of efforts both at home and on the road.
My T-birds Three Stars for the Weekend:
Third Star: G Thomas Milic. Milic went 2-0 as he gears up to carry the load in net come playoff time. In the two games he allowed just three goals, posting a 1.50 GAA and a save percentage of .930. Seattle's goalies don't face as many shots on average as their opponents, but the T-birds have a penchant for giving up ten bell scoring chances and Milic was their both nights to shut the door.
Second Star: D Ty Bauer. Bauer scored his first goal since the night he was injured, back in early December. It was a big one. After Spokane crawled back within 3-2 Saturday, the captain unleashed a blast that pushed the T-birds lead back up to 4-2, enroute to a 6-2 win. Bauer doesn't score a lot but of his five goals, two are game winners and two are insurance goals, like that one against the Chiefs. Then Sunday versus Everett he was the T-birds emotional leader. Did he take a few penalties? Yes, but he didn't back down in a chippy rivalry affair. He helped set a physical tone.
First Star: W Lukas Svejkovsky. What do you do for an encore after you've just signed your three-year NHL entry level contract? Why you go out and score three goals in two games. Svejkovsky, who signed with the Pittsburgh Penguins earlier in the week, is now on a seven-game point streak, accumulating 15-points in the process (10g, 5a). He is now 20th in the WHL in scoring with 76 points.
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