Seattle Thunderbirds vs Peterborough Petes Memorial Cup Playoffs: Where & how to watch, predictions - 2nd June 2023

The Seattle Thunderbirds face the Peterborough Petes in the Memorial Cup playoffs on Friday night with the winner facing the Quebec Remparts in the finals.

The Thunderbirds finished the round-robin 2-1 and advanced to the semi-finals while the Petes had to play the Kamloops Blazers in the tiebreaker on Thursday. They trailed 4-1 before coming back to win 5-4 in overtime to advance to the playoffs.

The Memorial Cup playoff game goes down on Friday at 10 p.m. ET in Kamloops, British Columbia.

How to watch Seattle Thunderbirds vs Peterborough Petes

TV: TSN, RDS, NHL Network.

The Seattle Thunderbirds and Peterborough Petes played in the round-robin back on May 27 with Seattle winning 6-3 in both of these teams' first game of the tournament.

In the game, the Petes scored just 1:24 into the game and led 1-0 after the first period. The teams traded goals in the second and were tied 2-2 going into the final frame.

In the third period, the Thunderbirds outscored Peterborough 4-1 to cruise to a 6-3 win in a game Seattle said they didn't play well in.

“In a tournament format, you want to get off on the right foot,” said Thunderbirds head coach Matt O’Dette following the game. "We didn’t have our best game, but sometimes you have to find a way to win and we did that tonight.”

Peterborough, meanwhile, was very disappointed in that game against Seattle as they knew they didn't play well at all.

“We gave them six gifts,” Petes coach Rob Wilson commented following the game.

Although the Petes felt like they haven't played their best hockey, they are off to the semifinals and will rematch the Seattle Thunderbirds. Peterborough also believes having to overcome adversity will fare well for them.

“We’ve had this ‘it’s not over’ type of attitude,” Peterborough head coach Rob Wilson said. “We adopted that at the start of the playoffs and we’ve [ran] with it... When it went to 4-1, I said to them, ‘if you don’t allow another goal, you can win this.' The muddier the water, the better it is for us."

“It shows the team character,” Michael Simpson said of Peterborough’s ability to battle back. “We’re an older group and guys have been through different situations and for some reason in this postseason it just seems like when we’re down, we find an extra gear to push forward and get the win.”

X-Factor: Michael Simpson was not good early on against Kamloops but the Petes starting goaltender found his groove and shut the door after the Blazers got up 4-1. If Peterborough is going to upset Seattle, Simpson will need to be on his A-Game and likely will need to allow two goals or fewer.

Thunderbirds vs Petes prediction

Both Seattle and Peterborough can score a ton of goals so this game will likely come down to which goaltender is better and can steal the game.

However, this Thunderbirds team is one of the best junior teams in a long time and I expect Seattle's offense to be too much for Peterborough once again.

Seattle Thunderbirds 5, Peterborough Petes 2