If there’s one take-away from game one of the WHL Western Conference Final, it’s that every second counts.
The Seattle Thunderbirds stretched their post-season unbeaten streak to nine, winning 5-4 over the Kelowna Rockets at ShoWare Centre on Friday night. The game-winner was scored with just eleven seconds left to play.
But that wasn’t the only marker in the dying seconds of a period.
In the first period, the Rockets’ Kole Lind scored with just seven seconds left in the frame to tie the game at one; in the second, it was Seattle’s Alex True who lit the lamp with just three seconds left to play, knotting the game at two.
To top it off, the team that scored the buzzer-beater at the end of each period also added another within the first minute-ten of the following frame; the Rockets’ Reid Gardiner scored at 1:09 of the second period and Turner Ottenbriet hit the back of the net just fifty-two seconds into the third.
Three of the Rockets goals came on the man advantage. So did the game-winner for Seattle.
Game two hits the ice Saturday night.