Thunderbirds roll, clinch

When Aaron Gagnon scored a natural hat trick in the second period, the feeling wasn't exactly one of joy.

The captain of the Seattle Thunderbirds remembered back to his last hat trick in the playoffs, which came in a T-birds loss.

This time they won, beating the Tri-City Americans 7-2 in Game 6 to advance with a 4-2 series victory in the opening round of the Western Hockey League playoffs.

"I remembered it and wondered if it was going to be déjà vu all over again," Gagnon said with a smile. "I didn't even want to think about it. I just kept it to myself, but I knew we had a lot of character guys and wouldn't let that happen again."

Gagnon's last playoff hat trick came last season when he scored three goals in the first period only to have the Portland Winter Hawks come back to win Game 7 in the opening round, 4-3 in overtime.

"I didn't want to think about it, but I knew we had a lot of character guys and we wouldn't let that happen again after it did last year," Gagnon said. "We knew we had to keep working hard because Tri-City wasn't going quit. With Derek [Yeomans] back in net there, we knew we were in pretty good shape."

Gagnon's third goal in the second period gave Seattle a 4-0 lead. The T-birds extended the lead to 6-0 before Tri-City scored twice in the third period to cut the margin to 6-2. Benn Olson ended any doubt with his first goal of the playoffs in the third period.

The turning point in this game came early.

An attempted clearing pass around the back of the net that was inadvertently shot into his own net by defenseman Tyler Schmidt at 2:55 of the first period set the tone.

"I don't think we ever regained our composure after that," Tri-City coach Don Nachbaur said.

Prab Rai was given the goal, but he was two strides away from the rookie Tri-City defenseman when the puck went past Tri-City goaltender Carey Price and into the back of the net.

Price had no chance and was pulled after the second period with the T-birds leading 6-0.

"I think that's about the worst thing that you can have happen to you," Seattle coach Rob Sumner said. "We came out and played hard. After losing last night in overtime, we were very businesslike and determined to come out and end it tonight."

Note

Tri-City general manager Bob Tory was fined $500 for comments to league officials after Tri-City won Game 5.

Seattle vs. Tri-City

Seattle wins best-of-7 first-round series 4-2 (all games on KKNW, 1150 AM)
Date	Result
March 23	Seattle 2, Tri-City 0
March 24	Tri-City 2, Seattle 1
March 27	Seattle 3, Tri-City 1
Wednesday	Seattle 2, Tri-City 0
Friday	Tri-City 5, Seattle 4 OT
Saturday	Seattle 7, Tri-City 2

THUNDERBIRDS 7, AMERICANS 2

Tri-City	0 0 2 — 2
Seattle	2 2 3 — 7

First — 1. Seattle Rai 1 2:55. 2. Seattle Gagnon 3 (Eberle) 10:24 (sh). Second — 3. Seattle Gagnon 4 (Rai, Holloway) 13:12 (pp). 4. Seattle Gagnon 5 (Rai, Hickey) 16:33 (pp). 5. Seattle McKenzie 2 (Herman, Meidl) 17:26. 6. Seattle Jo. Schappert 1 17:50. Third — 7. Tri-City Broda 1 (Reddick, Gilles) 3:23. 8. Tri-City Broda 2 (Reddick) 5:11. 9. Seattle Olson 1 (Meidl, Schappert) 17:11. Shots on goal by — Tri-City 8-8-13 — 29. Seattle 13-14-5 — 32. Goal — Tri-City: Price (L,2-4, 27 shots, 21 saves, Picard 0:00 3rd, 4 shots, 3 saves). Seattle: Yeomans (4-2, 26 shots, 24 saves, DeSerres 16:15 3rd, 3 shots, 3 saves). Power plays (goals, chances) — Tri-City 0-6, Seattle 2-9. A — 3,081.