T-Birds Suffer Road Loss in Spokane
October 6, 2024 - Western Hockey League (WHL)
Seattle Thunderbirds News Release
SPOKANE, Wash. - The Seattle Thunderbirds fell behind early and often enroute to a 7-2 loss to the Spokane Chiefs Saturday at the Spokane Veteran Memorial Arena. The setback was the T-Birds second in a row and leaves them winless on the road in four tries. Seattle now returns home to begin a three-game homestand. First up is a Tuesday contest against the Tri-City Americans. Game time at the accesso ShoWare Center is 7:05 p.m.
The Thunderbirds surrendered three goals in the game's first five and a half minutes and were down 4-0 before the opening period was over.
"Not a good game," remarked head coach Matt O'Dette. "We're in a kind of in a Murphy's Law state right now, whatever can go wrong, does go wrong. Definitely not the start we were looking for."
The Chiefs scored on the games first shot, forty seconds in. They added another goal less than two minutes later, then scored on the power play at 5:31. Their fourth goal came at 10:57 and chased T-Birds starting goalie Jaxson Dikur to the bench, replaced by Grayson Malinoski.
"We're not playing very well," said O'Dette. "That's the bottom line. We've got to get better in a lot of different areas."
Spokane scored a fifth goal early in the second period before the T-Birds finally got on the scoreboard with a Nathan Pilling power play goal at 4:08, assisted by Sawyer Mynio and Coster Dunn. The Chiefs struck again nine minutes later. Seattle added their second goal, again while skating with the man advantage, in the final minute of period two. Mynio one-timed in his first of the season at 19:17. Pilling and Braeden Cootes earned the assists.
Spokane tacked on one final goal at 6:17 of the third period to finish off the scoring.
"We've got to get healthy. We've gotta get guys back on the ice," commented O'Dette. "We've got a lot of guys fighting illness. We've got to get that out of us. It's not an excuse though. We've certainly got to play better."
In addition to the game against Tri-City Tuesday, Seattle will host the Kamloops Blazers next Friday and the Portland Winterhawks on Saturday. Tickets are available at seattlethunderbirds.com
T-BIRDS EXTRAS
Seattle continues to play without Antonio Martorana who is out with a lower body injury.
Goalie Scott Ratzlaff is back from NHL training camp and could make his regular season debut this week.
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