On Saturday night, the Seattle Thunderbirds kept up their massive winning streak by beating the Portland Winterhawks 2-1. The win comes on the heels of the previous night’s victory over the Everett Silvertips, also a score of 2-1. The T-birds remain in the first place spot of the US Division, their stats now at 39-23-3-0. The Silvertips, who were just five points ahead of the Birds this side of two weeks ago, are now trailing by two points as we approach the 2016 Playoff games.

There are only seven games left until the Playoffs, folks. So even if we bomb the rest—and the odds are that we won’t if they go anything like the last ten games have gone—we still have a guaranteed spot to compete for the Cup. In fact, the Birds have won the past 11 out of 12 games. The Birds can sit tight with that knowledge, but given their ferocity on the ice lately, they probably won’t go into the Playoffs without finishing the fight toward the games themselves.

Landon Bow’s fan club will be pleased to hear that the goaltender raised his stats to 21-20-4-0 during the Portland game. Bow was on fire the night before with the Tips and, just as with that match, he only let one goal in for the night. You can almost picture Bow curtly nodding at one goal during each game. “Yeah, okay, you can have that pity shot.” His confidence is growing and the Birds are doing well for it.

During the first period, Ethan Bear made a power play that ended with the first goal of the night. Ryan Gropp and Matthew Barzal made the assists. It was Bear’s 18^th goal of the season. Portland tied the game to 1-1 during the second period with a goal from Rihards Bukarts. Cody Glass had the assist. Then Nolan Volcan scored the final goal of the night during the same period with Scott Eansor and Donovan Neuls making the assists. No goals were scored during the final period.

It is awesome that the guys have made it this far and have secured their spot in the Playoffs, but how much more awesome will it be if they play for the Cup like they’ve been playing lately? The Birds will be at Tri-City later today for their next game. The puck will drop at 5:05 PM. The next home game will be on Friday when they face off against Everett once more.

Photo courtesy of Wikipedia