The Seattle Thunderbirds rallied from three goals down to start the third period but came up short to the Portland Winterhawks in a 6-3 WHL loss at the accesso ShoWare Center on Saturday night.<\/p>\n
The T-Birds (23-30-4-3, 53 points) and are in the second wild-card playoff spot in the Western Conference and seven points behind the Kelowna Rockets (27-27-3-3) for the first wild-card spot. The T-Birds and Rockets meet on March 6 in Kelowna in their fourth and final game of the season.<\/p>\n
The T-Birds’ magic number to clinch a tie for a playoff spot is seven points. The T-Birds are 11 points ahead of the Prince George Cougars (17-34-4-4) with nine games remaining, meaning they can obtain at the most 60 points.<\/p>\n
Portland went in front 1-0 on a Seth Jarvis goal at 13:17 of the first period.<\/p>\n
The Winterhawks took a 2-0 lead on a goal from Shaun Gervais at 18:10 of the first.<\/p>\n
Seattle cut the Winterhawks lead to one goal at 3:32 of the second period. Ryan Gottfried created a turnover in the defensive zone and started a two-on-one break with Keltie Jeri-Leon, who skated into the offensive zone on the left wing and took a wrist shot from the left circle. Jeri-Leon’s shot came off Portland goalie Joel Hofer’s left pad right to Gottfried coming down the slot. Gottfried fired the rebound past Hofer for his third goal of the season.<\/p>\n
In the second Jarvis scored a second goal at 8:13 and Lane Gilliss scored on the power play at 18:48 to put Portland up 4-1 after two periods.<\/p>\n
Conner Bruggen-Cate started the comeback at 12:08 of the third period. Brendan Williamson found Bruggen-Cate in the slot with a pass. Bruggen-Cate took the pass on his forehand, spun to left and lifted a backhand shot past Hofer for his 14th goal of the season.<\/p>\n
Owen Williams scored at 15:51 of the third to cut the Winterhawks’ lead to one. Mount passed the puck to Williams in the left circle. Williams beat Hofer over the glove with a wrist shot for his second goal of the season. Henrik Rybinski had the second assists.<\/p>\n
Robbie Fromm-Delorme scored at 16:44 of the third for Portland.<\/p>\n
Seattle pulled goalie Blake Lyda with 1:18 left in the third for an extra attacker. Jarvis was able to score with 36 seconds left in the game to get Portland’s sixth goal.<\/p>\n