Jan-no win-uary

What the heck is it about the month of January that keeps the T-bird from winning games? They had very few wins (less then five) the last two January's combined and now they are off to an 0-5 start to the 2012 version of the month. Maybe we should just peel that month off the calendar in 2013.

Really though, no secret to why Seattle has now lost six in a row. The defensive zone coverage continues to be lacking consistency over the full sixty minutes and the offense has evaporated. The T-birds are barely averaging a goal a game (1.3) during this losing skid. The offensive chances generated aren't many either which means there's greater pressure to score on those you get and Seattle just isn't doing that.

You also can't give up 5 goals a game and win very often. During this losing streak opponents are scoring, on average, 4.8 goals. And with each goal that is scored it just seems that the teams psyche takes another hit and the effort level drops.

Still hard to figure out how this team can play a solid first period and not respond the right way off that effort in the second. I don't want to repeat myself ad nauseum but it takes every player going hard for 60 minutes to win. You can't think you've got it figured out after playing well for 20 minutes. Just one guy taking one shift off can be the difference between winning and losing.

So, now what? Well, all they can do is push forward, hope for a lucky bounce of a puck maybe, and try to right the ship. There's still plenty of hockey left, 32 games.