Happy Thanksgiving as Seattle catches their breath in the midst of four games in five days.
Seattle has been a .500 team the last four games. A loss followed by a win, followed by a loss, then a win. Not all surprising considering the youth of the team and who is out of the lineup.It's all speculation but I believe with a healthy Sawchyn and Myatovic the last month, the T-Birds are probably good for another two to three wins. I doubt they blow third period leads to Victoria and Spokane. They'll enter Friday's game against Saskatoon at 10-8-1-0 but 13-6-0-0 looks a lot better. But as they say, it is what it is.
When the Thunderbirds play their brand of hockey, they're a hard out for anyone. The forecheck is their bread and butter. Get pucks in deep and grind down your opponent. When they fall off their game they struggle to keep up, spending too much time in the defensive zone. Usually the culprit is the lack of crisp passing as they try to move up ice. At other times it's not being positionally sound inside their own blue line.
These are the growing pains this team will go through. One night they'll look like world beaters, the next, not so much. Heck, they went through both those stages in the loss Tuesday in Kennewick. They were all over the Americans in the fist period, outshooting them 19-9. Now, not many of those shots were of the dangerous variety but it still meant they had a good portion of the puck posession. It was a different story in the second period as they struggled to make tape-to-tape passes and as a result they looked like a completely different team and fell behind, 3-0.
As you know, the T-Birds traded their 2021 first round pick, Tij Iginla to the Kelowna Rockets in the offseason. The player requested the trade and the organization obliged. Iginla is off to a good start with the Rockets with 18 goals in 23 games, though Seattle stifled him Wednesday night in his return to the accesso ShoWare Center.
I sure hope that first round pick Seattle got back is Kelowna's own and not the Regina pick Seattle traded to the Rockets last January in the Colton Dach deal. There is still a long way to go this season but right now that Rocket's first rounder is a lottery pick as Kelowna currently sits with the third worst record in the WHL after losing ten of their last 11 games. The last time Seattle was sitting with the third overall pick in the first round of the WHL Draft, they won the draft lottery and moved up to select first overall. They ended up with some guy named Mat Barzal.
Either way it looks like the T-Birds are in line for a high selection and I trust Bil LaForge and his scouts to find another high end player to add to their stable of young prospects. The T-Birds don't have a lot of picks in the 2024 draft but getting a lottery selection could make up for that.
Seattle has signed nine 2007 born players (current 16 year olds). Six of them are currently on the roster. Another, Caleb Potter, has played in a couple of games for Seattle this season. Jaxson Pawlenchuk skated in two preseason games. The other, defenseman Tai Riley, just recently signed. I would be shocked if he doesn't make his WHL debut at some point this season, even if he's up for just one game at the end of the season. Along with their 2006s (five on the roster), that's a lot of youth getting some early action in the WHL. It's going to lead to inconsistency but hopefully it speeds up their development.
Watch Seattle's 2022 first round pick Braeden Cootes whenever he's on the ice and tell me he doesn't play a complete 200 foot game. He's not perfect at age 16 and will make the occasional mistake, but he has all the makings of a team leader. He has that "hockey maturity" that reminds me of the way Nico Myatovic has played since he arrived on the scene.
My T-Birds Three Stars for the front half of four games in five days:
Third Star: W Coster Dunn. He may have been Seattle's best player in the loss Tuesday in Kennewick. He's got a sneaky good reach with his stick that has made him fairly adept at stripping pucks. He still is growing, even after taking a big leap physically this offseason. Already a solid skater, once he gets even stronger in the upper body, he should improve his ability to fight through checks. My comp for him would be Mathew Wedman.
Second Star: C Sam Popowich. Seems to be the one T-Birds players that goes consistently to the front of the net. It led to an assist on Seattle's power play goal against Kelowna Wednesday night. He added a second assist on the Simon Lovsin empty-netter. The T-Birds are one of the best face off teams in the WHL at this juncture of the season. Winning defensive zone faceoffs when shorthanded is a key to a good penalty kill and Popowich is very adept at it. He was 14-of-25 on draws Wednesday night.
First Star: G Scott Ratzlaff. Ratzlaff earned his first shutout of the season Wednesday with a 19 save effort. It was the seventh shutout of his T-Birds career after leading the league last season with five. In his last four games he has turned aside 121 of 125 shots, posting a 1.06 GAA and a .960 SVPCT. After a slow statistical start to the season he is starting to look like the Ratzlaff that won WHL Goalie of the Month honors last December.
Thom, I once again agree with your take on the -T-Birds. One problem I see and it has been an issue the last few seasons, is getting someone in front of the net. Even on PP's, they seem content on passing the puck around the parimeter and when the shoot is taken, the opposition goalie has a great view of the shots. If they had someone in front, the T-Birds could screen the goalie and pick up rebounds for those 'greasy' goals and maybe draw a penalty or two during the game. Popowhich is a gamer, but he is also one of the smallest guys on the team and those taller goalies can easily see over and around him, they need a big body in front. But that is an issue as well, as young as they are, the T-Birds are not a big team.
ReplyDeleteMynio was absolutely roobed twice the other night. I am seeing a lot of maturity in his game.
Hartman is going to get a reputation, because he seems to be one you don't want to trifle with, His two fights in as many games earlier in the week, were so one sided, he got 5 minutes for fighting and the other guys got 5 minutes for receiving.
As far a next summer's draft goes, I would not be at all surprised to see Bill LaForge make some deals at or near the trade deadline, to recupe some of the picks he traded off last season. One player I don't want to see moved though, is Sawyer Mynio. Some people think I am crazy in suggest trading players, even if we are looking like a playoff team, but LaForge has done it before and as bad as those trades looked at the time, the trades ended up working out quite well for the team.
I would like to sing the praises of the scouting departmemt, in finding diamonds in the rough with mid to late round picks and scouting 'listed' players who have gone on to star with the team. A big shout out to them. We've had our share of 1st round busts over the years (Elijah Brown and others), but those mid to late round picks, plus listed players (Jared Davidson, Scottie Eansor and others) have been outstanding.
Speaking of Eansor, I see a lot of him in Charko. I am not saying Charko will develop like Scott did, but Charko has a motor and is built solid as a fire hydrant, like Scott.