T-Birds Settle for Split in Victoria
VICTORIA, B.C. – The Seattle Thunderbirds saw their three game winning streak come to an end Saturday at the Save On Foods Memorial Centre with a 6-1 loss to the Victoria Royals as the T-Birds settled for a split of their two games on Vancouver Island this weekend. Seattle plays their third game in as many days with a Sunday afternoon game at the Langley Events Centre against the Vancouver Giants.
The Royals broke a scoreless tie with a goal late in the first period, then took advantage of Seattle’s early second period penalty woes to tack on two power play goals. The T-Birds took a pair of minor penalties 68 seconds apart. Victoria capitalized, scoring a 5-on-3 goal at 2:35 then a 5-on-4 goal 29-seconds later.
Our first period wasn’t great, but was probably our best period, looking back,” remarked head coach Matt O’Dette. “We’ve had some really good progress over the last three games, playing a mature game, playing to a formula that works for us and we weren’t willing to do that tonight.”
Just past the midway point of the second period, the Royals added to their lead and held a 4-0 advantage after forty minutes. Two goals a little over five minutes apart in the third period stretched the Victoria lead to 6-0.
“We couldn’t get any of what we needed going for us at any point in that game,” said O’Dette of the effort. “We had to rely on our goaltender to keep it close in the first period then the second period troubles, some undiscipline play, some avoidable penalties, that’s not a recipe to win on the road.”
The Thunderbirds finally got on the board with a power play goal of their own at the 13:41 mark from Coster Dunn. Nathan Pilling and Antonio Martorana had the assists.
Seattle finished the game with just twenty shots on goal and half of those came after falling behind by four goals. “Just an overall reluctance to shoot,” explained O’Dette. “We’ve had a mindset of more volume to the net, being direct, not passing up shots, not overhandling the puck. Everything we built up over the last three games we seemed reluctant to do tonight.”
T-BIRDS EXTRAS
Seattle played a third straight game without Braeden Cootes, their second leading scorer. Cootes missed the T-Birds game Wednesday while participating in the CHL-USA Hockey Challenge back in Ontario. He missed the two games in Victoria due to illness.
Also out of the lineup is the T-Birds fourth leading scorer Sawyer Mynio, who missed his seventh game with an upper body injury. Mynio and Cootes are Seattle’s co-captains.
The Thunderbirds power play goal Saturday in Victoria ended an 0-for-16 stretch with the man advantage.
Boxscore: Seattle Thunderbirds at Victoria Royals – Saturday, November 30, 2024
