March Madness has begun. How else to explain that T-birds dramatic win Tuesday.
February started so well. A seven-game winning streak, punctuated by a signature road win down in Portland. Ah, but in February many hearts are broken, and Seattle finished with a three-game losing streak.
But it wasn't a panic inducing three game skid. The T-birds weren't playing poorly. That's not to say that they didn't go flat in the third period last Friday in Spokane, turning a 2-1 lead into a 5-3 loss. In the three losses that was probably their only bad period of hockey. Remember, in that seven-game winning streak Seattle was averaging nearly six goals per game. You knew at some point that would level off. It was unsustainable.
Sure enough, against the Chiefs, Everett and Kelowna, the bounces weren't going their way. The Everett game is a prime example. The T-birds played their brand of hockey and were driving the play, yet they were shutout despite 48 shots on goal. Shots missing open nets, shots off the post or crossbar and some incredible saves by the goalie. A week or two earlier and those shots were going into the back of the net. The hockey gods just took away some of the Thunderbird's mojo.
The only way to get that mojo back is to keep grinding, keep shooting and keep playing your brand of hockey. The T-birds needed to keep from panicking. They had to avoid getting frustrated and gripping the sticks too tight. They needed to stay on task, but they also needed to get that mojo back before the streak wore on. The longer it went on the more doubt would seep in.
What they needed was a finish like they got Tuesday night in their thrilling come from behind win over the Rockets. Look, teams pull their goalie late for an extra skater all the time, looking for a late tying goal. And while the percentages of scoring in that situation are probably around 10-15%, if that, it does happen enough that it is not out of the ordinary.
But normally in those situations, where teams pull the goal for the extra skater and end up scoring a game tying goal, I would guess the odds are pretty high that the game ends up going to overtime or a shootout to decide the winner. It's almost as though both teams are preconditioned for that result.
But to score the tying goal under that scenario and then bag the game winner with just a few seconds to spare? Well, that's the man-bites-dog ending, the Bigfoot sighting, the alien abduction story. It's so very rare. After that goal was scored by Sam Knazko you could almost see the confidence being injected back into each player.
Maybe it's just my perception, but it seemed to me after Seattle got the equalizer that Kelowna played for the inevitable overtime while the T-birds went for the win in regulation.
My T-Birds Three Star for the Week:
Third Star: C/W Jared Davidson. Davidson showed his versatility, moving from wing to center with Henrik Rybinski missing the last two games with injury. He has reached the 100-point mark in his WHL career, and he has blasted past his previous best season point total by 43 points and counting.
Second Star: W Reid Schaefer. Schaefer now leads the team in goal scoring with 26, which by the way is 26 more than he had all of last season. He has five goals over his last five games and the post and crossbar kept him from adding to that total. But he also contributed an assist on the game winner Tuesday.
First Star: D Sam Knazko. His career as a T-bird has been brief. He joined the team in early December, Still recuperating from Covid. he then promptly left for World Juniors. He came back after that tournament got canceled but wasn't back long before he left for the Winter Olympics. He's back again and playing so well. He is a cerebral player. He seems to be thinking of Step C in the process while executing Step A. His game winner Tuesday wasn't a, highlight reel thing of beauty. It was him knowing the situation and putting himself in the right position when the time called for it.
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