Zack Andrusiak of Armstrong scored 5:04 into overtime Saturday night at Angel of the Winds Arena in Everett to give the Seattle Thunderbirds a 5-4 victory over the Silvertips.
Andrusiak took a pass from Reece Harsch in the neutral zone and split two Everett defenders. Andrusiak beat Everett goalie with a backhand shot over the blocker before 5,694 fans. It was Andrusiak’s second snipe of the post-season.
The first-round Western Hockey League playoff series is tied 1-1.
Andrusiak, 19, finished his second season with Seattle with 36 goals and 74 points. He played 15 games with the BCHL Vernon Vipers in the 2015-16 season.
Austin Strand, Turner Ottenbreit, Sami Mollanen and Mike MacLean also converted for the Thunderbirds.
Garrett Pilon, who was Viper winger Jimmy Lambert’s linemate with the Midget Saskatoon Contacts, pulled the hat trick for Everett. Martin Fasko-Rudas added a single.
Everett topped the U.S. Division with 99 points, while Seattle garnered 78 points and made the playoffs via wildcard.
Meanwhile, it’s the position the Kelowna Rockets least wanted to find themselves in less than a week into the WHL playoffs.
Now Jason Smith’s club faces the task of having to mount a first-round comeback in hostile territory. Trailing two games to none in the best-of-seven, the Rockets face a near must-win Wednesday night when they battle the Tri-City Americans in Game 3 in Kennewick, Wa.
“We’re just taking the approach that nothing else matters except Game 3,” said Smith, in his second season as Rockets’ head coach. “We have to take those first two games, flush them away and not dwell on anything that happened before. “It takes four games to win a playoff series, it doesn’t matter how you get them so we just need to start with the first step on Wednesday night.”
After a 5-0 setback against the Ams in the series opener Thursday night at Prospera Place, the Rockets came out on the short end of a wild, run-and-gun, very non-playoff like 9-7 score on Saturday. Smith said his club played well in stretches in the first two games, but will need more complete efforts this week south of the border
“There were positives from both games, we did some good things but we didn’t execute at the level we needed to and didn’t get the results,” said Smith. “We made some errors, and when you spend as much time as we did defending against the offensively-gifted players that they have, it’s tough to be successful.
“We wiped the slate clean at practice on Monday,” added Smith, “and focused on the things that allowed us to have success during the regular season.”
Nolan Yaremko registered three goals for the Americans, while Morgan Geekie, Michael Rasmussen and Isaac Johnson each supplied 2+2 before 5,560 fans.
Vancouver Canuck draft Kole Lind pocketed 2+2 for the Rockets, while captain Cal Foote earned 1+3 and Kyle Topping counted 1+2.
Game 4 goes Thursday at the Toyota Center, with Game 5 set for Saturday, 7:05 p.m. at Prospera Place.
