The Heat is On

Six games remaining. Six games to determine your fate. Six games to earn a playoff spot or fall short. As they, say, nothing comes easy.

A few times since the T-Birds climbed out of the Western Conference cellar and into that eighth playoff position, they've had a chance to put a fork into their nearest competition for that final playoff spot. They've just come up a little short. Back on February 21st they could have essentially ended Wenatchee's chances to stay in the hunt.  The T-Birds were four points up on the Wild. A win and Seattle would have been six points clear of the them in the chase. But Wenatchee came back late in that game to earn a 2-1 overtime win and stay within three points of Seattle.  Two weeks later and they are still just three points back. Seattle just can't seem to shake them.

March 4th at home, the T-Birds had the opportunity to put eight points between themselves and the Kamloops Blazers, but a subpar first period put the T-Birds in a three goal hole they couldn't climb out of and lost the game, 3-2. Instead of being eight points back the Blazers got within four points of the T-Birds. They are now six points back but that win kept them alive.

Even this past weekend, after a big road win in Portland, Seattle had a chance to again erase the Blazers from the chase and put Wenatchee on the verge of elimination, but another sluggish start and the T-Birds fell at home to the Winterhawks, 4-1.

I bring it up only as a reminder that this is a young team and so many of these players have not been in this situation in the WHL before, facing the pressure of needing to win almost every night. They are still developing their killer instinct, that need to follow up a big win with another big effort.  It will come.  Baby steps.

Despite not yet putting the hammer down on the Wild or Blazers, Seattle still controls their own fate.  Right now their magic number to clinch the final playoff spot outright is eight points.The T-Birds currently have 55 points, Wenatchee 52 and Kamloops 49.

With just five regular season games left, the most points Wenatchee can finish with, if they win their final five games, is 62 points. That would mean the T-Birds have to earn eight of 12 points in their final six games to finish ahead of the Wild.  Wenatchee's final five games? One against Kamloops, two versus Prince George and two against Everett. Four of those five, including their next four, are on the road. Only their final game of the season, against Everett, will be at home.  The odds they win out are pretty slim, but you never know.

Kamloops has six games, and a possible 12 points to play for. They do have three against the last-place in-the-conference Kelowna Rockets. They play Wenatchee once as well and have single games against Victoria and Vancouver. Four of their final six are at home. Again, the odds of a team with a .395 winning percentage winning their final six games seems remote but if they did they would finish with 61 points. That would mean the T-Birds would need to earn seven points in their last six games to eliminate the Blazers.

Because they play each other this Wednesday, we know one of the two teams, either Kamloops or Wenatchee, is not going to close out the season by winning all of their remaining games.  One of them is going to drop either two or a single point in that matchup.  So, in reality Seattle's magic number to clinch is either six or seven, depending on who wins and who loses that game Wednesday in Kamloops.

Of course a road win for Seattle Tuesday in Kennewick, the night before Kamloops and Wenatchee square off, would slice two points off the T-Birds magic number. It is very possible the 'Birds go into next weekend's three games in three nights, with a magic number of as few as five points. This is where the T-Birds advantage of controlling their own destiny comes in to play. Take care of business Tuesday night in Kennewick and you've almost forced the other two teams to win out to have a chance.

Of course beating the Americans is easier said than done. they are a tough out.But Seattle is coming off two big road wins in their last two road games. They beat Spokane last Saturday in Spokane, 6-3,and then Friday they went down to Portland and earned a 7-2 win.  It's the kind of road effort they will need Tuesday at the Toyota Center against Tri-City. 

In reality, the playoffs start now.

A few thoughts before I sign off:

Finn Bagley started the season with the T-Birds, stuck around a few weeks, and then was reassigned to the JPHL's Calgary Rockies U18 team. He had 11 goals in 16 games and them and then was recalled to Seattle in Mid-January. Though he has only played in seven games since his return and hasn't registered a point, I like what I have seen from 2008 born (16 year old) forward, in that limited sample. He plays with tenacity. As a result, he has a knack for drawing penalties.  A fifth round pick in the 2023 WHL Draft, he plays bigger than his 5"11, 169 lb frame would suggest. He just has the makings of another solid md-round pick by GM Bil LaForge and his scouting staff.

What to make of the T-Birds recent home-away goal scoring stats? Last three road games, 14 goals. Last seven home games, just 15 goals. To be fair, those home games have been, for the most part, low scoring affairs. Neither Seattle or their opponent are scoring a lot recently at the ShoWare Center. But maybe it is a good thing that four of Seattle's final six games are on the road.

I think most analysts would say that the T-Birds should have been a playoff team last season, based on their roster. Of course injuries clearly derailed that. Those same analyst might would argue that, again based on their very young roster, the T-Birds should miss the playoffs this season.  But here they are, with a chance good chance to be a 2025 playoff team.  I think that's coaching. 

More often than not, the Coach of the Year award in the WHL goes to the coach with the team at the top of the standings, one of the favorites to win the Cup (unless of course, you're the T-Birds coach as neither Steve Konowalchuk or Matt O'Dette have won the award despite both guys guiding the team to two two Western Conference titles and a Chynoweth Cup each. Heck, Dave Lowry won it twice in Victoria and they naver made it to a Conference Final, let alone the WHL Championship series. Makes you wonder why, But I digress). 

A few years back Portland's Mike Johnston was named the Western Conference Coach of the Year with a fifth place team. I think what Matt O'Dette has done with this T-Birds team the second half of the season deserves recognition. It may be his best work yet. I doubt he gets a sniff but he should at least be considered.

His first half will keep Scott Ratzlaff from consideration when it comes to awarding the top goaltender prize, but his second half has been phenomenal. Since the start of the new year he is 12-7-2-0 in 21 starts with a 2.37 GAA and .928 SVS. In those 21 starts he has faced 42 or more shots eight times. His .908 SVS on the season is the real measure of how good he has been in net for the T-Birds. This team isn't close to a playoff spot without him.

After 62 games and six plus months, it comes down to the final ix games to determine your fate. This is why we love hockey.

How Far We've Come

It's been a good 2025 thus far for the Seattle Thunderbirds. With their win Saturday at home over the Everett Silvertips, the T-Birds record since January 1st is 12-7-1-0. Only five of the T-Birds 20 games in the new year have been against a team with a losing record; three against Kelowna and two versus Wenatchee. Seattle went 3-1-1-0 in those five games, meaning the Thunderbirds record in 15 games against teams with winning records in the new year is a very solid 9-6. It includes two wins against the team with the best record in the WHL, Everett, a win agaisnt the team with the top record in the Eastern Conference, Medicine Hat, as well as a win versus B.C. Division leader Victoria.

When the calendar page turned from 2024 to 2025, the T-Birds sat in 11th place in the eleven team Western Conference.  Their 25 points had them five points behind Wenatchee for 10th place and seven points back of both Kelowna and Kamloops, who were tied for the 8th and final playoff spot in the west with 32 points each. They were coming off a month of December in which they had gone just 2-8-0-0 and ended the month on a five game losing streak.

Three games into 2025 The T-Birds went 1-2 while Kelowna was going 2-1 through their first three games, meaning Seattle was now nine points back of the Rockets for the final playoff spot in the Western Conference ten days into the new year. In fact, the Thunderbirds came off the Christmas break by losing five of their first six games to start the second half of the season, and had just traded away one of their best players, Sawyer Mynio.

Seven games into January and the 'Birds were 3-4. Respectable at nearly .500, but still staring up at a seven point deficit in the chase for that final Western Conference playoff spot. They still needed to climb over three teams in the standings. You can give up, or you can chose to get into the fight. Seattle chose to join the battle.

In reality, it wasn't until January 21st, one month ago, that the T-Birds began their climb out of the cellar. With their 7-1 win over the Vancouver Giants on January 21st, Seattle would begin a 13 game stretch in which they would go 9-3-1-0, vaulting them past Wenatchee, Kamloops and the Rockets into 8th place and a playoff postion. 

They have put together back-to-back winning months. With still one more February game to go, they have already put together their best month of the season at 6-2-1-0. They are four points up on Wenatchee for the final playoff spot in the west with a dozen games to go. They control their own destiny. They have done a one-eighty and turned their season around.

The schedule going forward is still going to be tough, inlcuding two 3-in-3 weekends where two of the three games will be on the road. Every game except one will be against a team with a winning record. But they have proven they can compete on a nightly basis with the best the league has to offer.  Where this ends, we don't know yet. That chapter has yet to be written, but these last two months may just be the best work GM Bil LaForge and head coach Matt O'Dette have done together since joining forces back in 2018. 

Some quick notes before I sign off:

1). Scott Ratzlaff is 11-2-1-0 in his last 14 starts. That inlcudes a 3-0 mark against the two teams currently sitting atop their respective divisions, Everett and Medicine Hat. In those three games he turned aside 110 shots or about 37 a game. Only two of the goals he gave up in those three games were in the third period. 32 saves on 34 shots with the game in the balance. If their was an MVP for the second half of the WHL season, he'd get my vote.

2). An unsung hero emerging almost every night. A game winning goal from Sawyer Mayes in Wenatchee, the fourth line stepping up with a tying goal from 16 year old Brendan Rudolph versus Everett with an assist to 16 year old Colton Gerrior. A Radim Mrtka shootout winner. Brayden Holberton with points in three of five games and Ashton Cumby blocking multiple shots every night. The list goes on. As O'Dette said, 20 guys for sixty minutes.

3). Next man up mentality. Last weekend Seattle plays three games in three days without their leading point prodcer, Braeden Cootes, in the lineup. They were missing Hyde Davidson, one of their top four d-men. They go 2-1 and came oh so close to a three game sweep.  This weekend they play two games without Nathan Pilling, their leading goal scorer, and earn three of four points. 3-1-1-0. Seven of ten points earned. Just two goals allowed in regulation in the two games this weekend. Team defense, led by Ratzlaff, is trending up.

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.