| Portland Loses Despite Comeback Over 10,000 fans packed the lower bowl of the Rose Garden to see the Portland Winter Hawks take on their top rival: the Seattle Thunderbirds. Up to this point, Seattle had beaten Portland each time the two teams had met, including a 2-0 win to spoil the Hawks home opener. The Hawks came out a bit flat in the first period, getting only 6 shots on goal. Meanwhile, at the other end, Portland Goaltender Dustin Butler had to come up with several huge saves, as Seattle fired 13 shots on goal. However, when the buzzer sounded to end the period, the Hawks went to the dressing room lucky that the game was still scoreless. The Hawk came back onto the ice for the second period looking even flatter than in the first period. Once again, Seattle was able to get the majority of the chances. Butler again had to be sharp again, but his shutout bid would end just over 8 minutes into the period as Aaron Gagnon fired a shot from the bottom of the face-off circle that was partially deflected and into the net. It didn�t take long for Seattle to expand their lead, as Ladislav Scurko came over the blue line and beat Dustin Butler with a long wrist shot from the top of the face-off circle. That goal ended Dustin Butler�s evening, as Winter Hawks Head Coach Mike Williamson elected to bring in Blake Greenier to replace him. The game would continue to go in Seattle�s favor for the remainder of the second period, as Portland found themselves skating to the dressing room down 2-0. The third period started about the same way that the second period ended. Portland wasn�t playing all that well, and Seattle was content to hold onto their two goal lead. That would change however, at 9:49 of the period, when the Hawks got a power play. Once on the power play, Team Captain Braydon Coburn would slide the puck to Garret Festerling, who fed it right back to Coburn for the big one-timer from the blueline that beat Seattle Goaltender Bryan Bridges. Suddenly, the Hawks were back into the game, now trailing just 2-1. The Hawks got another power play with just over 5 minutes remaining in the game. Brendan Mikkleson took a pass from Funk, used a fake shot to clear out a shooting lane, then ripped a huge slap shot right pass Bryan Bridges to tie the game. Now Portland had all the momentum, and Seattle was forced to call a time out to regroup. Portland continued to play strong, but made one huge error in their defensive zone. Seattle�s Chris Durand got long shot on that was an easy save for Greenier, but the rebound came right to Tyler Metcalfe, who had all day to get around Greenier and file it home to give Seattle a 3-2 lead. Portland came right back and fought hard to tie up the game, but in the end, were unable to get another puck past Bridges, as the Hawks lost to Seattle again, this time by a score of 3-2. |