Seattle Thunderbirds beat Spokane Chiefs 5-2 at Arena
Sometimes re-entering the locker room for intermission can blunt a hockey team’s momentum.
That’s what happened to the Chiefs (7-6-4-1) in their 5-2 loss to the Seattle Thunderbirds on Tuesday at the Arena, where Seattle (9-8-0-1) outscored Spokane by three goals in the third period.
After Kailer Yamamoto scored his 16th goal of the season in the first period to cut Seattle’s lead to 2-1, Spokane kept the pressure on in the second period, outshooting the Thunderbirds 11-3.
But the only goal Spokane was able to muster in its most dominant period came from Hudson Elyniuk’s wrist shot from the right side 13 seconds in to tie the game.
And after that, it all fell apart.
Ryan Gropp scored 3:54 into the third period on assists from Keegan Kolesar and Matthew Barzal. Alexander True opened up the Thunderbirds lead to two goals on a laser that sailed over Spokane goaltender Dawson Weatherill’s left shoulder.
Nachbaur called his team’s performance and effort, “pretty disappointing.”
“We didn’t compete, that’s what I just said in the locker room,” Nachbaur said. “We’ve got to battle a lot harder to get pucks out of our end and we failed. We didn’t move the pucks and for whatever reason.”
The Chiefs had a chance to take a dent out of Seattle’s lead when Keegan Kolesar was sentenced to the box for four minutes after hooking and unsportsmanlike conduct. But the Chiefs couldn’t take advantage of the 6-on-4 advantage after pulling Weatherill, and Seattle’s Nolan Volcan added an empty-net goal, sinking the Chiefs’ narrow chances of coming back.
Falling apart in the third period was frustrating for Spokane, which entered the second intermission with momentum on its side. But the abysmal third period was doomed the Chiefs, even though they outshot the Thunderbirds 33-31.
“When you have a period like (the second), it should give you more momentum to go into the third,” Elyniuk said. “I don’t know what happened in between periods, but it’s not good enough and we need to be way better.”
The Thunderbirds scored twice in the first period with goals from defenseman Brandon Schuldhaus and center Scott Eansor.
Although Weatherill was in net for Seattle’s five goals, Nachbaur said didn’t get much help from his teammates in front of him.
“We can blame our goalie all we want, but what happened prior to Seattle’s scoring is that we made too many mistakes in front of him,” Nachbaur said. “(Seattle had) wide-open players on net from key scoring areas.”
The loss to Seattle makes Spokane’s upcoming home matches on Friday and Saturday crucial to staying on the right side of the playoff picture, as relenting two points to the Thunderbirds evened the two teams at 19 points in the standings.
“We really got to bear down and get four points this weekend,” Elyniuk said. “It’s a really big weekend coming up here.