Five on Five

The Thunderbirds completed their stretch of five consecutive road games with a 2-3 record. As always the team is not looking for moral victories but they were in every one of the five games. A bounce here, a little stronger effort there and another win or point or two was not out of the realm of possibility. There are a number of areas where the team is still working to improve but the biggest culprit through the first month-plus of the season is their lack of scoring punch.

Through their first 15 games Seattle is averaging just 2.26 goals per game. On the just completed five game road trek, they potted just eleven. Over the last four of those the T-birds averaged only 1.75 goals a game. That they won two of those games, and were in most of the others down to the end, is a testament to solid goaltending and better team defense. But you won't win a lot of games averaging 1.75 goals per game.

If Seattle wasn't getting puck possession, if they weren't generating chances, it would be more alarming. On the season though, the T-birds are averaging 32 shots on goal per game. That's a decent number. What Seattle is lacking is finish. That is especially true on the power play where the team is just 19th out of 22 teams. The T-birds have produced just nine power play goals on the season on 63 opportunities. That means on average the T-birds are getting four power play chances a night but are averaging just .6 power play goals per game. When you are allowing a power play goal against each game (Seattle has surrender 15 power play goals to the opposition), it is like starting each game in a 1-0 hole.

A couple of games ago I asked head coach Matt O'Dette why the team isn't generating more offense and seem to be stuck at the two-goals-a-game barrier. There were a number of reasons given but he said getting traffic in front of opposing goalies was a primary issue, not a lack of opportunity. I watched that particular aspect the last two games. He's right. The team was not consistently getting traffic in the house area in front of the net. Players are often waiting for the shot to be taken before going to the net. That's usually going to be too late to get to a rebound. Additionally, Seattle is missing the net with a lot of their shots recently. Then, to compensate for that some players are just putting the puck into the goalies body, making for easy saves and severely limiting second chance opportunities.

Why are veteran players usually leading goal scorers in the WHL? Because they've learned that most goals are generated in that five to ten foot area around the goal. My guess is, if you looked at the goals Matthew Wedman and Andrej Kukuca have scored, the majority of them have been from on the door step. Younger players are used to scoring on their first shot down at the bantam or midget level. Crashing the net hasn't been a consistent aspect of their game yet.

Thus, Seattle's roster makeup is part of the reason for the low goal output. The T-Birds have two proven goal scorers in 20 year olds Wedman and Kukuca. They have a third player, 18 year old Henrik Rybinski, who can distribute the puck and score and 19 year old Keltie Jeri-Leon has contributed four goals, but the bulk of the roster is young second year players or rookies. 12 player currently on the roster fit into that category. This early part of the season is essentially their apprenticeship, their on the job training.

Most of that youth on the team is in the forward group. This past week two more 16 year old fowards, Sam Popowich and Reid Schaefer, made their WHL regular season debuts. They are filling in for two 16 year old forwards, Conner Roulette and Kai Uchacz, who are away at the U-17 Hockey Challenge. Next week I anticipate one more young forward, Matthew Rempe, finally healthy enough to make his WHL debut. At some point 16 year old Mekai Sanders, yet another rookie forward, will need to be inserted into the lineup.

When you have that many rookie and second year forwards, they can't all be in the lineup at the same time. There just aren't enough spots available in the bottom six on game night. So, you rotate them in. This will affect continuity. You'll get different line combinations every game. Is that going to frustrate some fans? I'm sure it does. But the reason is simple; the organization has made a concerted decision to hasten the development of that group of players. Could they stick a few of them on a Junior A team as they have done with Popowich and Schaefer? I suppose. But the Thunderbirds believe in their talent so much that they feel they are better served learning at the WHL level. They want that group playing, practicing, traveling and living together to build the chemistry among them.

The reality is, it is the right decision. A player like Lucas Ciona isn't going to get better playing Junior A, In fact a year down a level might even stunt his growth. But playing in Seattle this season is going to make him a better Thunderbird two years down the road and the same can be said of so many of these young guns.

While Seattle is not winning the majority of their games so far, they are battling down to the wire most nights with this very young group. Half the roster is comprised of rookies and second year players and they are not being skated off the ice, they are competing on a nightly basis. If they had more room on the roster I think they'd keep Popowich and Schaefer in Seattle rather then send them back to the AJHL when Roulette and Uchacz return. They are good enough to be here.

So why this season and not a year after they won their 2017 WHL Championship, or why not last season? For one, Seattle still had a lot of quality veteran talent left from that championship run the last two years. Enough to get them into the postseason and try to make some noise. they did eventually trade some of that off at last January's trade deadline. My guess though, would be the 2016 WHL Bantam Draft has a lot to do with it. I'm sure the T-birds plan was to build around that draft and seamlessly go quickly into reload mode off their Chynoweth Cup. Seattle was very high on that draft. In fact I saw one person outside the organization who follows bantam hockey in Western Canada proclaim Seattle had one of the better drafts that spring.

Unfortunately, as we sit here today, not one player from that 2016 draft remains with the organization. They would comprise your 18 year old age group if they were here. Before this season began the T-birds traded away the last vestiges of that draft when they sent Jake Lee and Cole Schwebius to Kelowna and Greame Bryks to Victoria. Seattle had four picks in the first three rounds that spring. Lee was their first pick, but he was the only one of those four high selections to sign with Seattle.

Second rounder Eric Fawkes along with two third round picks, Alex Swetlikoff and Layton Ahac, all opted for the NCAA route. Only Ahac remains on the team's protected list. Only Swetlikoff is playing in the WHL, on the roster of his hometown team, the Kelowna Rockets. When it became clear he wasn't going to sign with the T-birds, Seattle traded his rights to Lethbridge and they subsequently dealt him to the Rockets. After Kelowna won the bid to host the 2020 Memorial Cup, Swetlikoff decided to forego the NCAA and sign with his hometown team.

Fawkes, who attended two training camps, is currently playing in the NAHL but is committed to RPI. Seattle dealt his rights to the Winnipeg ICE, his hometown team. Ahac, who was drafted in the third round last June by the NHL's Las Vegas Golden Knights, played the last two years in the BCHL with the Prince George Spruce Kings and is now at the Ohio State University. Seattle also traded the rights of their sixth round pick that year, Nakodan Greyeyes, to Saskatoon but he remains unsigned. While Seattle never dealt a first or second round pick, they traded 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th round picks to acquire players to build up their championship roster.

When the 2016 Bantam Draft didn't work out the way the team hoped it would, newly minted General Manager Bil LaForge did the prudent thing. He got all his 2018 draft picks signed or traded for more assets. He then cut his losses and dealt away the parts of that 2016 draft that remained in exchange for even more draft capital. Seattle had already inked their top three picks from the 2017 draft (Payton Mount, Ty Bauer and Luke Bateman).

They drafted and quickly signed Uchacz, Roulette, Ciona, Thomas Milic, Sanders, Popowich and Schaefer in 2018 and they've already signed their top three picks from the 2019 draft (Jordan Gustafson, Kevin Korchinski and Spencer Penner) and I have no doubt more signings are in the future from that class of 13 players. LaForge and the scouts have restocked the cupboard with talent and future picks, including an extra first rounder. The 2016 draft was a setback, but the train is back on the tracks.

My T-birds three stars for the five games on the road:

Third Star: W Henrik Rybinski. He got off the schneid offensively potting his first goals of the season. More importantly, he's shooting more then he was the first couple or weeks of the season and he's back to being a menace on the forecheck. Those are all the qualities that made him a fifth round draft pick of the Florida Panthers back in June. I don't know if he lost some confidence or was just frustrated but he's looking more and more like the 2018-19 version we saw the second half of last season.

Second Star: G Roddy Ross. He probably didn't have his best game in Red Deer, but he did enough, including stopping all three Rebel shooters in the shootout, to get the win. He was the primary reason for the 2-1 win in Calgary. If Seattle has a chance to win most nights it's because he's making the saves to keep them in games late. I'm not around the T-birds room that often, but when I am, I'm hearing Ross more and more. That's a sign he's embracing a leadership role on the team as well.

First Star: C Matthew Wedman. He is simply put Seattle's best player every night. And on many nights he's also the best player on the ice for either team. With Seattle not getting offensive punch elsewhere, they are relying on Wedman. The fact he's scoring when opposing teams are concentrating on shutting him down, tells you how far he has elevated his game from his rookie 16 year old season. The more I see of him the more I believe not only does he have a chance to be a solid pro player, but he has a chance to make it to the NHL.