The Hunter Becomes the Hunted

A strong effort over the last 18 games has propelled the Thunderbirds from being an afterthought to being a team being chased for the last playoff spot in the Western Conference. In fact 12 games ago, the T-Birds lost at home to the Kelowna Rockets, 5-2, and as a result were seven points out of a playoff spot, dead last in the West, needing to leapfrog three teams. Since then, they have gone 8-3 and now have a three point lead for the eighth seed.

How did we get here? Well, I think there are many factors but it starts at the top with the general manager, Bil LaForge. 

I think when we assess what makes a good GM, we generally look at two areas. Do they draft well and do they make smart trades? No one is going to be one hundred percent in those two categories, but with LaForge, the batting average in both areas is Ted Williams-esque. If you want to judge his body of work as a winning percentage, I would say he is well over .500.

Some examples of his best work? Drafting players like Reid Schaefer and Nico Myatovic in the later rounds. How about the trade with Kelowna at the 2019 draft that netted, among other things, a first round pick he turned into Kevin Korchinski. There was letting all the young players eat up all the ice time in the pandemic shortened season, hastening their learning curve which led to back-to-back trips to the WHL Championship Series.

There was recognizing that the Western Conferene was wide open in 2021-22, so he made a post-Christmas deal to acquire Lukas Svejkovsky, giving his lineup a little more pop. That extra offensive punch came in handy in winning bact-to-back seven game playoff series against Portland and Kamloops.

It was knowing he had a special core group of players in 2022-23 that could take the team far and he was willing to acquire the elite talent to help them win a Chynoweth Cup. He let them know he believed in them and was willing to pay a huge price to help them achieve that goal.

Now, there are those out there who say yeah, but what about 2023-24? Why didn't he sell off the high end assets he had left over from the championship roster to hasten the rebuild? Because on paper, he saw a roster that could compete and maybe had a couple of playoff rounds in them.  No one could have guessed the Chicago Blackhawks would keep Korchinski up in the NHL all season as a 19 year old.When Korchinski left T-Birds training camp that September for the Blackhawks NHL camp, he fully believed he was going to be sent back to Seattle. There was also a belief that Seattle could get Thomas Milic back for his 20 year old season but that too didn't happen.

Injuries decimated that team. Who could have predicted Myatovic getting hurt in a goal celebration in October of that year, essentially costing him two-thirds of the season.It wasn't just injuries, it was injuries to their best players, some long term: Gustafson, Mynio, Sawchyn and Dunn. It makes it hard to compete but it also makes it hard to trade assets that aren't healthy or even on your roster. HIndsight being 20/20 maybe deals should have been made but there are just some things you can't anticipate.  A GM doesn't have a crystall ball. 

Which brings us to 2024-25.  Traveling around the league the first half of the season, there was a definite vibe that Seattle was going to be a seller. After Christmas LaForge traded the rights to Jordan Gustafson to Lethbridge for four picks and overager Hayden Pakkala. He got five assets for a player who wasn't just not on the T-Birds roster, but hadn't played a game since last spring. The fire sale was on, right?

At the trade deadline in early January, he sent his best asset, Sawyer Mynio to Calgary, getting back six assets in return, including two first round draft picks. The last time Seattle got two first round picks for one player? You have to go back to 13 years when the T-Birds got two first round picks from Portland for Marcel Noebels. One of those picks turned into Keegan Kolesar, who just happened to lead the T-Birds in playoff scoring in the spring of 2017 when they won their first Chynoweth Cup.

So, there you have it. Seattle was selling off, looking to the future. They were dead last in the Western Conference, nine points out of the playoff picture with no chance. Postseason? Nope, just play out the second half and look forward to next year.

But then LaForge did something that caught eveyone off guard. In the final minutes leading up to the trade deadline, this GM of a last place, dead-in-the-water team, traded a third and a fourth round pick to Moose Jaw for Brayden Schuurman.

Is he crazy? What is he doing burning prime assets to bring in a 20 year old on a last place team.  I saw some of those online comments, not just from other fans around the league but from T-Birds fans as well.  LaForge just made the dumbest deal in the history of the WHL, if you read between the lines. What a loser!

Come on! It's not like he brought in a Dylan Guenther to light the lamp nightly and pile up dozens of points. In 13 games with Seattle Schuurman has just three goals, along with seven assists. Definitely not worth the price paid, right? Funny though, that before he arrived Seattle was well outside the playoff picture and now they are in the driver's seat for that last playoff spot.  That's because he, and Pakkala, brought leadership and a veteran presence to a young team.  They gave the team stability and let young players play down the lineup. 

But what LaForge did with that deal more than anything, was send a message to his young club and his coaching staff.  He told them with that trade, he believed in them. He said he trusted them to pick up their game and fight for that playoff spot.  It's not guarenteed Seattle will hold on to 8th place. They still have to fend off Kamloops, Wenatchee and Kelowna, so the possibility still exists that they miss the postseason despite that trade. But the players know their GM has their back, has their best interest at heart.  He understands how important a few postseason games can be for their development. As a result the players are juiced. they are pumped up and excited to be in the chase. They now go out on the ice each game, not hoping they'll win, but believing they will win.

Which brings us back to the initial question, what makes a great GM?  Sure, it's good drafting and making smart trades whether you are a buyer or a seller. It's also knowing that sometimes you have to be both a buyer and a seller. But don't overlook that intangible of knowing how to send a message to your players that you believe in them, that you have their backs. LaForge has that.

Before I sign off, some quick notes:

1). I loved Jordan Gustafson as a T-Bird. Huge part of their 2022 and 2023 playoff runs. Feel bad that injuries have sidetracked him the last two plus seasons now. I wish nothing more than for him to get healthy and have a long terrific pro career. I check the boxscore, even now that he is in Lethbridge, to see how he is doing. The only problem, he's not in the lineup lately. He's hurt again.  How frustrating. But if he gets healthy, he's going to help the Hurricanes in the postseason. He does have five goals for them but has only played five games.

Meanwhile, Pakkala, since coming to the T-Birds in that deal has 11 points (6g, 5a) in 20 games and is +7. Seattle used one of the third round picks in that Gustafson deal to acquire Schuurman. In 13 games with the T-Birds he has 10 points (3g, 10) and is +4. So combined Pakkala and Schuurman have played 33 games and have 23 points and are +11. Good deal for both sides.

2.) I firmly believe if the Pilling match penalty hadn't occured in the second period Monday afternoon in Portland, Seattle would be riding a five game winning streak. They were the better team for most of that game. The penalty led to a Portland power play goal and Seattle lost Pilling for the rest of the game. Already without Braeden Cootes, the absences changed the complexion of the game and Portland squeezed out a 4-3 win.  Now Seattle faces the possibility of playing some key games with Pilling, their leading goal scorer, suspended.

3.) Starting to see what LaForge and the T-Birds like about Sawyer Mayes, the player acquired in the Mynio/Clagary deal.  Remember he's a 2007, so just 17.  But he's another big body who can be a handful around the net and win battles along the boards. Nice, greasy game winning goal in Wenacthee Sunday and had a couple of close in chances Monday in Portland. He also had a breakaway in Portland but lost the puck at the last second and never got a shot off. That '07 forward group is gonna be fun to watch develop together with Cootes, Martorana, Holberton, Pekar, Charko and now Mayes.

4.) Scott Ratzlaff is back!  What a stretch! Ten wins in his last 12 starts, his first shutout since 2023  Sunday in Wenatchee, a terrific 40 save effort Saturday at home against the Winterhawks.  The team is playing better in front of him because his play behind them gives them confidence. If Seattle makes the postseason he is the biggest reason for their turnaround.

The One Third Mark

With 22 games played, the Thunderbirds 2024-25 season has just about reached the one-third mark.  That's a good spot to step back and do a little evaluating of what we've seen so far. 

But first, let's take a big step back and juxtapose this season onto how things usually develop in the up and down world of  the WHL.  If we go back to, let's say 2012, the T-Birds had just drafted the core of what would be their 2016 and 2017 teams.  That would be the Barzal, Bear Kolesar, Neuls group. That group was augmented with players from the 2011 draft (Gropp) as well as the 2013 draft (Volcan), a couple of Import picks in True and Moilanen, a list player like Eansor and a shrewd trade that brought in Ottenbreit, but the main body of the team that made two runs to the WHL championship series was gathered up in 2012 WHL Draft.

It took that group a couple of years of learning to win together. They suffered a couple of tough playoff losses, then it all gelled for them in 2016 and 2017, culminating in the 2017 Chynoweth Cup.

In 2018 and 2019, Seattle began the gradual descent down the top of the WHL mountain when that core group left for the pro ranks.  There were a couple of seasons of first round playoff exits. But in the background, the wheels were spinning as Seattle went to work building their roster back up again through the 2018 and 2019 WHL Drafts. The climb back up to the top had begun.

In 2018 they selected another core group to build around with guys like Ciona, Roulette, Milic, Popowich, Sanders and Schaefer. the next spring they added Korchinski, Gustafson and Myatovic into the fold. That young group was headed for a 7th or 8th seed in the Western Conference postseason in 2019-20 when Covid shutdown the season. In the shortened 24 game 2021 season, with no playoff spot to hunt down, the T-Birds let the young guys eat up all the ice time.

The next year that group, with that experience under their belt, got within two wins of a 2022 WHL Championship, then won it all in the spring of 2023. And then the gradual descent down the WHL mountain began. Seattle had what should have been a playoff roster a season ago.  Long term injuries to key players derailed that trip to the postseason for a team that, if healthy all year, could have competed potentially for home ice in the first round.

You see the pattern here though? Slowly build up a team and when that roster is at a peak, they should be in prime position to battle for a trophy. Then a couple years falling back and then building it back up again. It looks like a roller coaster ride if you drew it out on paper.

I think the T-Birds are a year or two behind the schedule of those two Chynoweth Cup winning teams.  I'm not saying that, because of their track record, they'll waltz into another league title. No, what I'm saying is they are at the bottom of the roller coaster dip and this season starts the slow climb back up into contention just as they did after 2017. 

It may not seem that way on the ice with the results through the first 22 games this season, but remember, three seasons before advancing to the 2016 WHL Championship that young team built around the 2012 draft finished with a .400 winning percentage. The core group of the 2023 Chynoweth Cup winners had a .437 winning percentage when the season was shut down in 2019-20.

Does it mean this year's young team is on the same trajectory? Personally I thnk it might take the team an extra season or so. My reasoning is because unlike the 2017 team, Seattle had to augment the 2023 team by spending a lot of top end draft capital.  When the T-Birds built the 2017 championship club I don't believe they traded away any draft picker higher than a third rounder. In 2023 they traded five first round picks as well as second and third rounders. That's a lot of ground to catch up, especially when the teams around you have the majority of their high picks.

The reason they had to spend more in 2023 is twofold. Teams around the league are willing to put all their chips in now. And not just one team, but multiple teams.  Secondly, in 2023 Kamloops was hosting the Memorial Cup so they went all in. Winnipeg had built a deep club in the Eastern Conference and they went all in.  To keep up Seattle had to do the same. So the price was high.I believe prices are richer when your league hosts the Memorial Cup because your league automatically gets two spots in the tournament.

So unlike after the 2017 championship when Seattle had eight combined draft picks in the first three rounds of the 2018 and 2019 drafts including multiple first and second round choices, the T-Birds had only a combined four picks in the first three rounds of the 2022 and 2023 WHL Drafts and only one of those was a first round selection (2022-Cootes). 

It has meant the work of GM Bil LaForge and his scouting staff really gets put under the microscope.  Under the circumstances, I would say they have done a pretty good job of restocking the system.  We won't know the true results for a year or two, but the Cootes pick was a home run, considering ten teams past on him. To be fair there were some very good players selected before him at the top of that 2022 draft, but remember LaForge traded up five spots to get him.  Me thinks the GM knows what he's doing.

Seattle didn't have a first or second round pick in 2023, they even had to trade up just to get back into the third round. Most of those 2023 selections came in the later rounds.  Players like Popil, Bagley, Dikur, Gerrior and Rudolph are barely scratching the surface of their skill level.

Where LaForge and his scouts may have really done some of their best work was in the draft last spring.  Seattle has already signed eight players from that draft as well as their top pick in the 2024 U.S. Priority Draft. The top pick, Brock England, was recently named the MVP of the WHL Cup.  Look for Seattle, along with most of the WHL teams, to augment those players by signing players next summer who were avoiding the WHL to protect their NCAA eligibility. That is no longer a thing.

So, as far as the evaluation of this year's team at the one-third mark?  We knew scoring was going to be an issue and it has been. I thought they'd do a little better at keeping the puck out of their net but injuries, inconsistent goaltending and  inexperience are leading to too many goals against. The penalty kill is another victim of their youth. 

But the biggest issue has been the groups lack of playing time together.  They are young and most of the older players came from other organizations.  They are still looking for that chemistry. Those two cup winning teams had a sense of where their linemates or defensive partners were on the ice. That came from playing together for three and four years. That doesn't exist yet with this group.

There have been some bright spots among the inconsistency.  Cootes is an obvious one. I think Coster Dunn has been better than his stats would lead you to believe. You get a glimpse of why the organization believes rookie players like Riley, Gerrior and Rudolph have a chance to be big pieces of the puzzle in a few years but they're going to take their lumps this season, just as the rookies did a year ago. 

Don't get me wroing. The team is fighting for and believes they can make the playoffs. But it is also true every season the players are being evaluated.  The organization is looking to see who can separate themselves, looking for the cream to rise to the top, the wheat to fall away from the chaff. There are alot of young players on the roster and in the system. Thirteen players on this roster are age 17 or younger. It is their job to use this ice time to hasten their development. 

I've been encouraged the last two games and hopefully it carries over to the rest of the season. I know both games ended up in losses but the play was so much cleaner. They kept it simple.  They stayed disciplined without losing a core piece of their identity; physicality. There was more time in the offensive zone. The passing out of the d-zone and throught the neutral zone was better than it has been. There is still much to be worked on.They need to get better in all areas but these last two games seemed to me a step in that direction.   

 

Finding a Foothold

It has been, to say the least, a sluggish start to the season for the Seattle Thunderbirds. As a result, they sit at 1-3-1-0 through their first five games. Too many repeated, but correctable mistakes are being made and it all begins in the defensive zone.

Puck management is the biggest issue. Seattle is losing too many board battles. They are not executing zone exiting passes.  Opponents are getting to the net front a little too easily. When the T-Birds play well, such as opening night on the road in Langley or the home opener against Wenatchee, and even to an extent, the home loss to Prince George, they keep these problems to a manageable amount. That gives them a chance to compete for sixty minutes. But when these errors pop up too often, the T-Birds make it hard on themselves to get in a positon to win.

Eleven players on the current roster weren't on the team a year ago.  Another seven are just beginning their second season and taking on bigger roles and more responsibility this season. That's essentially three fourths of your roster. So there is a lot of both inexperience and unfamiliarity. I think that leads to a lack of cohesion. The team is still trying to build its chemisty.

It's hard to say be patient because wins and points matter just as much now as they will in January and February, but the T-Birds have had to reload on the fly after their two year run that took them to the league championship series in both 2021-22 and 2022-23. 31 players who played a role, big or small, in the success of either one, or both of those seasons, have moved on.  That's a lot of roster churn in a short amount of time.

We almost forget that after Seattle captured the Chynoweth Cup in 2017, it took five years to get back to the top of the WHL mountain.  It seems like just yesterday that Mat Barzal was stepping off the team but in the ShoWare Center parking lot with that first ever Ed Chynoweth Cup, but in reality he's entering his 8th season in the NHL. Time flies. 

We also have to remember that to win the 2017 title, the T-Birds made very few roster moves that season.  They added just a couple of role players without spending any real draft capital or trading too many prospects. It was a different landscape in 2017. The WHL wasn't hosting the Memorial Cup that spring.

It was a completely different story in 2022-23.  There were a number of teams in contention besides Seattle.  Because Kamloops was hosting the Memorial Cup, the prices to add significant roster pieces were high.  As good as the T-Birds roster was, they had to pay a steep price to add guys like Nolan Allan, Colton Dach, Luke Prokop and Dylan Guenther to their team because that's what the Blazers and Winnipeg Ice were doing. They had to keep up with the Jones's. And it pretty much guarenteed Seattle was going to have a young team without much veteran presence for a season or two.

That's just the reality of Junior hockey.  If you want to win a title now, you have to develop talent but you also have to be bold.  General Manager Bil LaForge was bold and it paid off. Kamloops and Winnipeg/Wenatchee were bold and fell short.  

So Seattle is back to where they were after the 2017 run. They are reloading. They are looking for that group of players they can build around. In 2023 it was the 2003s. Is it the 2007s turn? Maybe. It could be the 2009s. They're still in their WHL infancy, so only time will tell. But Seattle has done it before, they can do it again.

The Thunderbirds scored the second fewest goals in the WHL last season with 190. Through their first six games this season they are averaging 2.6 goals per game, putting them on pace for even fewer goals (181) this season. They need to generate more offensive punch. It isn't necessarily a lack of shots.  It's a lack of high end scoring chances. The good news is that through six games those 16 goals have come from 10 different players. They will need scoring by committe to be successful so, to a certain extent, we are seeing that early on. They just need more of it. 

Slow Out of the Gates

I'm not going to read too much into the Thunderbirds opening weekend because this isn't the team yet, that will be on the ice for most of the season. Seattle is still missing seven regular players who are either away at NHL camps (4) or injured (3).  And it could be eight players because I believe at some point the T-Birds will look to fill that third and final 20 year old slot.

Opening night both the Thunderbirds and Vancouver Giants were missing players. Niether team had a significant roster advantage. Maybe a slight nod to Vancouver that got back a player from NHL camp in time for the game. That player just so happened to score the game winning goal. Otherwise, it was a competitive game and the Giants prevailed. Saturday in Wenatchee they faced a Wild team that was complete; no missing players, no significant injuries.

I'm also not going to say that we should accept that result againt the Wild because of a "built in" excuse. It's one thing to lose if you play your best. It's another to come up short because the effort wasn't there. Despite what Seattle was missing from their lineup against the Wild, had they put in a similar effort to the game the night before agaisnt Vancouver, they could have put themselves in a position to complete for a win.

Hopefully some of those seven absent players begin to trickle back.  Thank about it though, Seattle will be replacing one third of their game night roster when every one is back. Instead of playing 11 rookies, it will be just four.

Ten of Seattle's top 11 scorers from last season didn't play opening weekend. Now many of those players aren't returning, they've moved on to the pro or collegiate ranks. But players like Nathan Pilling, Simon Lovsin, Sawyer Mynio, Antonio Martorana and Matej Pekar will be counted on to supply offensive punch when they become available. Arjun Bawa will add some size and grit and fit into the top nine forward group. Scott Ratzlaff will lock down the crease. By contrast both Vancouver and Wenatchee had a number of returning point producers in their opening night lineups and guess what happened? They produced.

The T-Birds scored just four goals on the weekend. They came courtesy of a 16 year old rookie (Colton Gerrior) and two second year 17 year olds (Kazden Mathies and Kaleb Hartmann). They need some of the older players to chip with the offense. Problem is, there aren't a lot of veteran options at the moment. Seattle entered the weekend with the youngest roster statistically in the WHL, with an average age of 17.61. fifteen of the players listed on their roster going into the opening weekend are age 17 and under.  Six of the 12 players age 18 and older weren't available.

So let's hold off judegement on this team until we see how they perform when everyone is back and available.

A Fresh Start

The five game preseason schedule is now behind us. The Thunderbirds posted a 2-3 record, giving their young players as much ice time as possible. Next up the regular season which gets underway Friday, Spetember 20th up in Langley, BC against the Vancouver Giants.

The goal this season is to return to the playoffs. The T-Birds came up short of a postseason birth last season, finishing ninth in the Western Conference, with only the top eight teams advancing. It was the first time Seattle missed the WHL Playoffs (non-Covid) since the 2011-12 season.

Not to dwell too much on last season but it was a T-Birds team that needed everything to go right. They were coming off their 2023 league title and lost a majority of that championship roster. They had a young, inexperienced lineup that needed their veterans to pull a lot of the weight. Unfortunately the thing that couldn't happen if they were to have a successful season did happen. Their veteran leaders took the brunt of the 200 man games lost to injury. 

Specifically. Seattle lost two players, Jordan Gustafson and Nico Myatovic, for the majority of the season. Those two players were going to be counted upon to drive the T-Birds offense. Their absence is one of the reason the T-Birds ended the 2023-24 season with the second fewest goals scored scored in the WHL with 191. Only Kamloops, with 180, scored fewer.

I bring it up because once again, the Thunderbirds are going to have another young roster. Once again they are going to have to find ways to manufacture offense. Their best point producer from last season, Jeremy Hanzel, has graduated out of the program as did their third and fourth leading scorers Eric Alarie and Sam Popowich. Their leading returning point producer is '05 defenseman Sawyer Mynio, who put up 53 points (16g, 37a). Their leading returning goal scorer is '07 forward Antonio Martorana who potted 17 ('04 forward Nathan Pilling had 18 goals a season ago but only 13 as a T-Bird). Martorana became the first 16 year old to lead the T-Birds in goal scoring since some guy named Patrick Marleau did it back in the 1995-96 season, but Marleau did it by scoring 33.

The Thunderbirds roster could feature as many as 16 players under the age of 18. Now, a number of those players, five of the 17 year olds, got a full season of WHL action under their belts last season, but they are still young by WHL standards and it still potentially leaves a roster featuring 12 rookies.

The T-Birds roster has only seven players age 19 or over and one of those, William Huo, is considered a WHL rookie. 19 year old Arjun Bawa, obtained in a trade last May from Prince George, has played just 118 games in his WHL career and he is currently dealing with an injury and may not be ready for the start of the season. At the moment the team is carrying only two 20 year olds in Pilling and defenseman Owen Boucher. At some point you have to think they'll look to fill that last overage spot either through a trade or waiver wire pick up.

Seattle has yet to see Import Matej Pekar. As I understand it, the '07 forward from Czechia is working through an injury he suffered this summer.  The T-Birds are still hopeful that at some point they might see their other Import selection, '07 D-man Radim Mrtka. But Mrtka, considered a possible late first round pick in next summer's NHL Draft, is talented enough that he is being given the chance to compete for a roster spot with one of the top pro men's teams in Czechia.

So once again, Seattle will be in a dogfight for one of those eight Western Conference playoff spots. They'll have to (knock on wood) avoid injuries. They can't afford to lose another 200 games again.  They have some young players, like Martorana, Braeden Cootes. Nishaan Parmar and Simon Lovsin, who are capable of producing offense. They'll need '05 Coster Dunn to rediscover the offensive game he found last January just before an injury cut his season short. Pilling is a shoot first veteran who is capable of 20-plus goals. Mynio is one of the best offensive defensemen in the WHL. The opportunity is there, the players just need to grab it.

The Thunderbirds won their first championship in 2017 with a team built around the 2012 WHL Draft. They won their second title six year later in 2023, but it was the 2018 draft that set up that 2023 club for success.  Can their 2024 Draft, coming one season after their most recent title, set them up for success again?  

The T-birds have already signed eight players from that draft to WHL Education and Development contracts. The player Seattle chose in the first round this past spring, Brock England, seems like he is going to be a special talent. But championships aren't built around one player. The T-Birds have now signed 24 players from their last three draft years to include U.S. Prospects Drafts and Import Drafts. 

While there are only so many spots available on a roster, that's more than enough players to battle each other for those roster spots. Iron sharpens iron. 

PLAYER TO WATCH: I'm intrigued by Arjun Bawa. the 19 year old left winger is a former second round pick of the Red Deer Rebels, so at one point he was condidered a top prospect. He's yet to play a full season in the WHL. In 118 games in the league he's registered just 16-points (7g, 9a). Before he got hurt during a recent scrimmage, I thought he was having a strong training camp.  He plays a physical brand and at 6'2" he has the size to do it. It's possible he's just a late bloomer. Let's hope he's ready to break out. Definitley worth taking a flyer on as it only cost Seattle Oscar Lovsin, who isn't even on the Prince George roster, to acquire him.

Build Back Better 'Birds

The annual CHL Import Draft is the big "If". The picks are great "if" the players report.  The picks are great "if" they live up to the hype from your European source or the player's advisor/agent.  So, until you see the player report or get a live look at him in action at training camp, you just never know what you've got.

That being said, it would appear the Thunderbirds selected a couple of solid prospects out of Czechia with their two picks in the 2024 CHL Import Draft. Seattle went with a couple of 2025 NHL Draft eligible players in Matej Pekar and Radim Mrtka. Pekar is a center who put up good offensive numbers back in Czechia, including playing as a sixteen year old in 18 games at the U20 level. I saw someone post that they thought Pekar was one of the best players at the 2023 Five Nations tournament last December.

Mrtka is a defenseman, a 6'6" 200 lb defenseman. He just turned 17 on June 9th.  His numbers won't wow you but like Pekar, he played at the U20 level quite a bit last season as a 16 year old. He has quite a bit of international experience, representing Czechia on the world stage. And if hockey webites are to be believed, both these players should hear their names called at next summer's NHL Draft.

When the picks were made I scoured the internet for draft ratings on both players. Some of these sites seem to be one guy in his basement just throwing names at a wall and seeing what sticks. Others are collaborative efforts to compile as much information as possible and give an honest assessment. I took the aggregate of four or five of the more reputable sites and it seems these two Czechs should be picked next summer between rounds two and five.

The bigger tell though for me, with these two selections by Seattle, is what it says about the direction of the T-Birds.  Seattle could have selected older Import players (age 18 or 19). They could have opted for a couple of players already NHL drafted that would have a more immediate, but shorter term (one season) impact. These two players are, as mentioned earlier, 2007 born players. They are entering their 17 year old seasons.  If they report, the T-Birds could potentially have their services for the next three seasons. 

The Thunderbirds currently have ten 2007 born players signed to standard WHL Player Agreements. Those ten players are Braeden Cootes, Kaleb Hartmann, Kazden Mathies, Antonio Martorana, Sam Charko, Brayden Holberton, Caleb Potter, Grayson Malinoski, Tai Riley and Jaxson Pawlenchuk.  All but Riley and Pawlenchuk have played in at least one WHL game.

The addition of Pekar and Mrtka, should they come over to North America, gives Seattle a dozen 2007 born players to build around. They'll all be 19 year olds in the 2026-27 season.  As many as three years for this group to play together beginning this fall, with six of them already one year into their WHL careers. This is how Seattle constructed two Ed Chynoweth Championship rosters, by building around a core group and then supplementing through trades and other drafts.

That's why the build back better group doesn't just include the '07s.  First, the Thunderbirds have a 2006 group that includes Hyde Davdson, Simon Lovsin and Nishaan Parmar. The T-Birds have also signed five players (Vanek Popil, Colton Gerrior, Jaxson Dikur, Finn Bagley and Brendan Rudolph), chosen in the 2023 WHL Draft, the 2008 born group. It's even possible they could sign one or two more players from that class.

Meanwhile the top four selections from the 2024 WHL Prospects Draft (Brock England, Mathew Hilderman, Grayson Tash and Marcus Laraque) and the T-Birds first pick in the 2024 WHL U.S. Priority Draft (Ewen Willers) have all put pen to paper and signed their player agreements. 

In total that is 27 players to build around for the future. The odds that all these players stick together for 3-4 years are slim.  There will be trades made. Some won't develop as hoped for. A camp invite could earn a roster spot ahead of a drafted player or there may be a listed player on the teams protected list that they convince to come this way. These imports may not report and Seattle has to do it all over again next summer.  But the core group is there, the core that the T-Birds believe can get them back to hoisting an Ed Chynoweth Cup. 

A Look Back at a Key Draft

With the Memorial Cup completed, the 2023-24 CHL season comes to an end. An end is a perfect time to reflect back on the past few years. As I look back on this most recent era of the Western Hockey League, I'm astonished at just how good the top half of the first round of the 2019 WHL Prospects Draft was. And it certainly explains why a number of teams, including the Thunderbirds, traded up into the top half of the draft to get a chance to draft those 2004 born players. Four teams ended up with multiple selections in the top ten.

The first round consisted of 22 selections, so the top half of the draft would be picks one through eleven. To be fair there were picks in the second half of the first round that were solid picks but among the top eleven choices there was more than a handful of players who have left their mark on the WHL. That draft hasn't completely finished making its mark on the WHL. Many players from that draft, including some of the first round picks, will return next season for their 20 year old seasons, but the majority are moving on, if they hadn't already.

The first overall selection was Matthew Savoie, taken by the Winnipeg ICE. In fact the ICE had the first two picks, having acquired that second pick from Swift Current. After Savoie they selected Conor Geekie (ironically Geekie was traded to Swift Current by Wenatchee at the 2024 trade deadline). 

With Savoie and Geekie, Winnpeg would capture two Scotty Munro trophies, finishing with the best regular season record in both 2021-22 and 2022-23. They won two Eastern Division pennants and one Eastern Conference championship. This past winter Savoie was traded to Moose Jaw and helped lead the Warriors to the Eastern Conference Championship and their first ever Ed Chynoweth Cup. Both Savoie and Geekie would end up being NHL first round draft picks.

The Prince George Cougars had picks three and four in that 2019 Draft, choosing Keaton Dowhaniuk and Koehn Ziemmer. Together they helped the Cougars capture the 2024 B.C. Division banner and led them to the Western Conference Championship Series, where they fell to the Portland Winterhawks. 

Despite falling short, they helped PG to one of the best seasons in franchise history.  Ziemmer was drafted by the NHL's L.A. Kings (third round) and is likely headed to the AHL next season.  Dowhaniuk has gone undrafted thus far and could return to the Cougars for his 20 year old season and help make Prince George one of the favorites again next season in the B.C. Division.

Picks five and six belonged to the Brandon Wheat Kings. Going fifth overall to Brandon was Nate Danielson.  While Danielson could not lead the Wheat Kings to any significant playoff success in his tenure there, he did get selected by the Detroit Red Wings in the first round of his NHL draft year. His WHL postseason success came this past spring after he was dealt to Portland and helped the Winterhawks to a U.S. Division title and a Western Conference championship, before being ousted by Moose Jaw in the league final.

With the sixth overall selection in the 2019 draft the Wheat Kings chose Tyson Zimmer. Zimmer's time in Brandon was brief, playing parts of two seasons there before being traded to Lethbridge. He had a solid, if not spectacular season and a half with the Hurricanes before they traded him this past winter to Vancouver where he helped the Giants reach the playoffs.  He should get one more season as an overager with the Giants this coming season as they, like PG, should be a favorite in the B.C. Division.

Pick number seven belonged to the Kamloops Blazers and they chose defenseman Mats Lindgren (the Blazers would pick again later in the first round, selecting Connor Levis 20th overall). Lindgren was part of a couple of Blazer teams that won B.C. Division banners and was still with the team when they advanced to the Western Conference Championship Series in the spring of 2022, where they lost to Seattle.

Lindgren requested a trade in the summer of 2022 and was dealt to the Red Deer Rebels, where he played the last two seasons. He was part of the Rebels 2022-23 Central Division pennant winners. In the summer of 2022 he was drafted in the fourth round by the NHL's Buffalo Sabres.

The Thunderbirds had two picks in the top ten of the 2019 draft and the first of those, at pick number eight, was Jordan Gustafson.  Gus, of course was part of a T-Birds team that won one U.S. Division title, two Western Conference Championships and an Ed Chynoweth Cup. Along with that he played in the 2023 Memorial Cup Championship game. He was a third round draft pick of the NHL's Vegas Golden Knights and was T-Birds captain this past season.

In between Seattle's two top ten picks, Saskatoon chose Brandon Lisowsky with the ninth overall pick.  Lisowsky's Blades went to back-to-back Eastern Conference Championship series, won one Eastern Division title and captured the 2023-24 Scotty Munro Trophy after finishing with the league's best regular season record. Lisowsky is a Toronto Maple Leafs 2022 draft choice (seventh round).

The Thunderbirds executed a 2019 draft day trade with Kelowna to move back into the first round and used that 10th overall pick on Kevin Korchinski.  Korch did not disappoint, helping the T-Birds to a division title, two Western Conference Championships and the franchise's second ever Ed Chynoweth Cup as well as a berth into the Memorial Cup Championship game last spring in Kamloops.  Additionally, he won a gold medal with Canada at the 2023 IIHF World Junior Championship.

He was taken seventh overall in the 2022 NHL Draft by the Chicago Blackhawks and instead of returning to the T-Birds for his 19 year old season, spent the entire campaign playing regularly at the NHL level.

Lastly, with the eleventh selection in the 2019 WHL Draft, the Moose Jaw Warriors took Denton Mateychuk. With Mateychuk the Warriors won this past season's Eastern Conference Championship. A few weeks ago Mateychuk help the Warriors win their first ever WHL championship and was named the 2023-24 WHL Defenseman of the Year. In the summer of 2022 he was taken 12th overall in the NHL Entry Draft by the Columbus Blue Jackets.

To summarize, nine of the top eleven picks from that 2019 WHL Prospects Draft were drafted into the NHL. Five of those nine were taken in the first round of the NHL Draft (Savoie, Geekie, Danielson, Korchinski and Mateychuk).

Ten of those top eleven picks won at least one WHL division title and played at least once in a WHL conference championship series. Five of them won at least one conference championship, three of them won two conference titles and four of them (Savoie, Gustafson, Korchinski and Mateychuk) raised the Ed Chynoweth Cup.

Shockingly, the second half of that 2019 first round was pretty, well, mediocre at best. We mentioned Levis going to Kamloops with the 20th overall pick and he was probably the best of the remaining first round picks. Swift Current did select Tyson Jugnauth 21st overall but he never signed with the Broncos and they surrendered his rights. He was subsequently listed by Kamloops.  But Jugnauth stayed in the NCAA with Wisconsin until this past winter when his rights were dealt to the Portland Winterhawks. So he only played half a season in the WHL but did earn a U.S. Division banner and Western Conference Championship with the 'Hawks. 

So who was the best pick of those top eleven players? Or maybe a better way to state it is which of those top eleven picks ended up being the most bang for the buck? A case can be made for Savoie. He was the first overall selection and ended up with two Scotty Munro trophies, a couple of Eastern Division banners, two Eastern Conference Championships and an Ed Chynoweth Cup, though it took a trade for him finally to raise the Cup. But admittedly with a little bias, my pick would be Kevin Korchinski. 

Korchinski was passed over nine times in that draft. Eight other WHL teams had a chance to pick him and chose not to. Two other defenseman were picked higher.  Yet he was part of four banners (one U.S. Division, two Western Conference Championships and one WHL Championship) all with the same team. He came within one win of a Memorial Cup and he won gold with Team Canada at the World Junior Championships. He was the highest drafted WHL player in the 2022 NHL Entry Draft, taken two picks ahead of Savoie, and was the first of those players to make it to the NHL full-time.

Some notable later round bargains? Everett chose Ben Hemmerling in round three. Moose Jaw took 2023-24 CHL Player of the Year Jagger Firkus in the fourth round, Swift Current got NHL drafted defenseman Owen Pickering in round nine and the T-Birds drafted a kid out of Prince George in the sixth round who would go on to score the 2023 Ed Chynoweth Cup clinching goal, then get picked at the top of the second round of the 2023 NHL Draft...Nico Myatovic.