T-Birds Vanquish Victoria
February 12, 2022 - Western Hockey League (WHL)
Seattle Thunderbirds News Release
Victoria, B.C. - Jared Davidson registered a goal and three assists as the Seattle Thunderbirds upended the Victoria Royals, 6-1, Friday at the Save on Foods Memorial Centre. The win was the Thunderbirds third in a row. The same two teams stay in Victoria for a rematch Saturday at 7:05 p.m.
Davidson is the T-birds leading scorer with 55 points in 42 games, including a team best 22 goals. He and his linemates, Henrik Rybinski (1g, 2a) and Reid Schaefer (2g), combined for nine points in the win. Davidson says playing with good players makes him a better player. "Just making reads off each other. They're really easy to play with. They're all scoring so it makes it a lot easier."
Seattle (26-11-4-1) got off to a slow start, took a couple of early penalties, and fell behind when Victoria's Brayden Schuurman scored on the power play at 9:55. The goal seemed to wake the T-birds up as they responded with three goals over the second half of the first period.
T-birds head coach Matt O'Dette agreed his team got off to a slow start but said once they got going, they played a solid game. "They (Victoria) did a good job coming out of the gates. We were a little bit slow getting going, a couple early penalties. Once we got our legs under us, I thought we were much better."
The Thunderbirds tied the game when Rybinski deflected a Sawyer Mynio shot at 13:06. Davidson earned the second assist. Two goals from Lukas Svejkovsky gave Seattle the lead for good. The first came on the power play at 14:59 and stood as the game winner. The second came at 18:15, as he redirected a Leon Okonkwo Prada shot into the back of the net.
Since being acquired from Medicine Hat in late December, Svejkovsky has now played in nine games with the T-birds, accumulating 14 points (5g, 9a). O'Dette says that production is exactly why they traded for him. "He's starting to obviously get hot. Coming back from Covid it took him a while to get back up to speed with his conditioning. Not only is he contributing offensively, but he's doing it with really good habits."
Seattle would outshoot the Royals 18-2 in the second period and tack on two more goals. Davidson pushed the lead to 4-1 at 4:51 with Sam Oremba assisting. Then Schaefer potted his 20th of the season at 9:08 with the helpers going to Davidson and Rybinski.
That same combination got the T-birds final goal, a power play tally at 9:53 of the third period. Schaefer got the goal, tapping home a deflection off Davidson's face. For his part Davidson says it's all part of the game. "A Victoria guy just kind of tipped it. It hit me in the side of the cheek. I dropped, kind of melted a little bit but I'm all good."
After the Saturday game in Victoria, Seattle comes home for two. The Thunderbirds next home game is Tuesday at the accesso ShoWare Center. They host the Tri-City Americans at 7:05 p.m.
T-BIRDS EXTRAS
After going without a goal in his first 25 games as a T-bird, Schaefer now has 21 in 40 games this season, including four goals in his last two games.
Jeremy Hanzel picked up an assist on Seattle's game winning goal and now has eight assists in his last five games.
Davidson and Rybinski both extended their point streaks to seven games. Davidson is now 11th in the WHL in scoring.
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