T-Birds Slip by Tri-CIty
February 18, 2023 - Western Hockey League (WHL)
Seattle Thunderbirds News Release
KENNEWICK, Wash. -The Seattle Thunderbirds ran their winning streak to five games with a 4-3 overtime win over the Tri-City Americans Friday at the Toyota Center. Dylan Guenther scored twice, including the game decider, as Seattle improved to 40-9-1-1 on the season. The Thunderbirds return home Saturday to the accesso ShoWare Center at 6:05 p.m. They will host the Victoria Royals.
Guenther's winning goal came with just fifty seconds left in the extra period, scoring on a wraparound at the right post, beating Tri-City goalie Tomas Suchanek. It was a bit of déjà vu' for Guenther who scored the overtime game winner for Team Canada over Czechia at the 2023 IIHF World Junior Championships in early January. Suchanek was the Czechia goalie in that game as well.
"He's a really good goalie, he played well tonight," said Guenther of Suchanek. "I think that's just a coincidence, but it's nice to get the winner."
Thunderbirds head coach Matt O'Dette was once again happy to get the two points and the win, but feels his team needs to re-establish their game and get back to playing as they did most of the first half of the season. "We're doing enough to win," he said. "We're not playing complete hockey right now though. Some of our identity, our foundation, needs to get better. That's what has brought us success over the last couple of years. We're not seeing enough of that lately."
Seattle twice built two goal leads. They went up 2-0 in the first period on goals from Guenther and Sawyer Mynio. Tri-City answered with a power play goal.
In period two Brad Lambert put the Thunderbirds up, 3-1, on an assist from Guenther. It was Lambert's eighth goal in just eight games with Seattle. The Americans closed to within 3-2 with just under two minutes left in the period.
Tri-City, who entered the game with the league's second-best power play, scored their second goal with the man advantage to tie it early in the third period. The Americans finished the game 2-for-5 on the power play while Seattle was 0-for-1. O'Dette said some of that was self-inflicted.
"We had some discipline issues," he said before adding, "I thought we could have done more to earn some power plays."
Both teams had opportunities to end it in extra time with Tr-City ringing a shot of the cross bar. It was not long after that when Guenther ended it with his second goal of the game. The Arizona Coyotes prospect said he took advantage of Suchanek's aggressiveness. "I would rather have shot that, but he came out so far, I faked the shot and knew if I got around and over there quick enough it would have a good chance of going in."
Thomas Milic picked up his 20th win in goal with a 24 save night as Seattle outshot the Americans, 42-27.
Following their home game Saturday Seattle hits the road for a pair of games. They travel to Victoria for games Monday and Tuesday against the Royals.
T-BIRDS EXTRAS
With two assists, Reid Schaefer is one point shy of 100 for his WHL career. Jared Davidson's assist on the game winning goal was his 197th point with the Thunderbirds.
Brad Lambert is averaging two points a game since joining Seattle. He's compiled 16 points (8g, 8a) in eight games. Meanwhile, Guenther has seven points (3g, 4a) in just four games.
Seattle has 130 shots on goal against Tri-City in three games.
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