December 15, 2024 – Western Hockey League (WHL)
Seattle Thunderbirds News Release
PORTLAND, Ore. – the Seattle Thunderbirds lost the special teams battle and lost the game, 5-2, to the Portland Winterhawks Saturday at the Veterans Memorial Coliseum. Seattle is now off for the annual holiday break. They return to action December 27th when they host the Everett Silvertips at Climate Pledge Arena in the fourth annual Battle of the Sound.
Head coach Matt O’Dette wasn’t disappointed with the effort, just the result. “I thought we played pretty well,” he remarked. “There were mistakes for sure but as far as effort it was better than our last game.”
Seattle knew Portland had one of the top power plays in the WHL and would need to limit the penalties. “We played a game that was more conducive to them with lots of special teams play. Just too many penalty kills for us,” said O’Dette as the Winterhawks would go 2-for-7 on the power play while the Thunderbirds were 0-for-5.
Portland started the scoring with a shorthanded goal at 11:30 of the first period, then doubled their lead four minutes later while skating 5-on-5. The T-Birds cut the Winterhawks lead in half with Braeden Cootes scoring at 16:46, assisted by Radim Mrtka and Arjun Bawa. The goal was Cootes’s thirteenth of the season as he played in his 100th WHL game.
The Winterhawks extended their lead just past the four minute mark of the second period. Once again the T-Birds closed to within a goal as Antonio Martorana score his sixth of the season two minutes later. Bawa picked up the lone assist.
The turning point came a minute later as Seattle (11-19-2-1) found themselves skating with a two man advantage. The T-Birds failed to capitalize and not long after took a penalty of their own. Portland capitalized, scoring a power play goal to regain their two-goal advantage and added another power play goal in the third period to close out the scoring.
“5-on-3s, if you don’t score on them, there can be a big momentum swing for the penalty killing team,” commented O’Dette of the missed chance to tie the game. “Another turning point was in the third. We had a power play and soon into it we take a four minute penalty and they score on it.”
After being outshot 18-7 in the first period, Seattle would outshoot the Winterhawks 24-17 over the final forty minutes. “We were putting pucks on net with lots of rebounds,” said O’Dette of the last two periods. “We hit a couple posts too. A couple times we didn’t take the path to the net front when there were pucks lying there.”
T-BIRDS EXTRAS
The Thunderbirds reach the break having played 33 games of their 68 game schedule. The T-Birds played the majority of those games with two or fewer 20 year olds dressed. Twice this season they played with no 20 year olds in the lineup. Only five times in the first 33 games did the Thunderbirds have three 20 year olds in the lineup at the same time. Seattle played their last six games before the break with just one 20 year old dressed. They played the last three games with 16 players in the lineup age 18 or younger and of that group, 13 were age 17 or younger.
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