Americans get a scare from Seattle, hold on for dramatic win
Jordan Topping scored with 45 seconds remaining in overtime to help the Tri-City Americans to a 6-5 victory Friday over the Seattle Thunderbirds at ShoWare Center in Kent.
Topping’s goal was needed after the Americans blew a 5-2 lead in span of 12 minutes in the third period.
With goalie Dorrin Luding on the bench for an extra attacker late in the third, Donovan Neuls scored with 7 seconds left to tie the score at 5 and force overtime.
Michael Rasmussen and Brett Clayton each had two goals for the Americans, who took a 5-2 lead at 19:24 of the second with a goal by Riley Sawchuk.
Beck Warm finished with 12 saves in picking up the win.
Tri-City, which ended a three-game slide, outshot Seattle 41-17.
Nolan Yaremko added two assists for Tri-City, which will host Everett on Sunday.
Tri-City (15-9-3-0, 33 points) is third in the U.S. Division, three points back of second-place Everett and eight behind division-leading Portland.
Americans 6, Thunderbirds 5 (OT)
Tri-City | 1 | 4 | 0 1 | — | 6 |
Seattle | 2 | 0 | 3 0 | — | 5 |
First — 1, TC, Clayton 1, 5:50. 2, Sea, Wedman 3 (Moilanen, Tyszka), 6:20. 3, Sea, Philp 7 (Terretta, Bargar), 15:53.
Second — 4, TC, Rasmussen 11 (Geekie), 1:41. 5, TC, Rasmussen 12 (Topping, Yaremko), 8:17 (pp). 6, TC, Clayton 2 (Coglan, Gatenby), 11:22. 7, TC, Sawchuk 3 (Yaremko, James), 19:24.
Third — 8, Sea, Volcan 11 (Andrusiak, Tyszka), 8:09 (pp). 9, Sea, Andrusiak 15 (Tyszka, Moilanen), 16:54 (pp). 10, Sea, Neuls 7 (Andrusiak, Ottenbreit), 19:53.
Overtime — 11, TC, Topping 15 (Olson, Välimäki), 4:15.
Shots — TC 9-16-11-5 — 41. Sea 5-5-7-0 —17. Power plays — TC 1-4. Sea 2-4. Goalies — TC, Warm 8-4-0-0 (17 shots-12 saves). Sea, Berlin (25-20), Luding 3-8-1 (20:00 3rd, 16-15). Referees — Duncan Brow and Dexter Rasmussen. A — 5,233.
This story was originally published December 8, 2017 at 11:36 PM with the headline "Americans get a scare from Seattle, hold on for dramatic win."