Nico Myatovic and the Seattle Thunderbirds are just two wins shy of winning the Western Hockey League championship.
The T-birds beat the Winnipeg ICE 6-3 Tuesday night in Kent, Wash., to take a 2-1 lead in their best-of-seven WHL final series.
Seattle scored three goals in a 45-second span to grab a 4-1 lead in the first period and the T-birds never looked back.
Defenceman Jeremy Hanzel broke a 1-1 deadlock with his first of two goals in the game at the 13:24 mark and Brad Lambert followed suit 23 seconds later.
Myatovic, an 18-year-old Prince George native ranked 26th among North American skaters available for the NHL Draft, set up Seattle’s fourth of the game at 14:09. He carried the puck into the Winnipeg zone and spotted Jared Davidson cruising in at speed on the left side and fed a pass onto the blade of his stick for a quick shot that beat ICE goalie Daniel Hauser.
Thomas Milic made 35 saves in the Seattle nets as his team improved its playoff record to 14-3.
The T-birds and ICE resume the series with Game 4 in Kent tonight (7:05 p.m. TSN).
All games for the remainder of the series will be televised nationally on The Sports Network.
Seattle will also host Game 5 on Friday. If needed, the series will head back to Winnipeg for Games 6 and 7, Sunday and Monday.
The winner will advance to the Memorial Cup in Kamloops, which starts next Friday, May 26.
