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.

Begin the Climb

The Western Hockey League postseason is in full on mode, down to the final four teams. The most exciting time of the year, unless you are on the outside looking in. The Thunderbirds missed the 2024 playoffs and that was disappointing. It's difficult at the WHL level to stay at the top.  Every three years your roster basically gets turned over. A champion one season, in the cellar the next. You spend a few years developing a player and before you know it, he's off to the next level. 

It's just not easy to create that consistency of winning and fighting for a Cup every year. Winnipeg/Wematchee, who fell to Seattle in the 2023 Finals was one and done this playoff run, after winning back-to-back Scotty Munro trophies after posting the best regular season record in 2022 and 2023. Edmonton, the team that beat Seattle in the 2022 WHL Championship Series, has missed the postseason two years in a row.

The last two Cup winners pre pandemic? Prince Albert won it all in 2019. They are 2-8 in the postseason since, getting knocked out in the first round twice. The team they beat in the 2019 Final, Vancouver? 7-14 in the postseason with just one playoff series win, a first round upset of the Silvertips in 2022.

Swift Current took home the Ed Chynoweth Cup in 2018. After missing the playoffs three times, this spring was their first foray into postseason play since and they went 5-4 over two rounds before being eliminated. 

Everett was the team Swift Current beat in the spring of 2018. They've qualified for the postseason each year since, including earning the Scotty Munro Trophy in 2022, after compiling the best regular season record. Unfortunately they were upset by Vancouver in the opening round that spring. To their credit they have played in 29 playoff games since falling to the Broncos in that 2018 league final. But their record in those playoff games is 12-17 and they've only won one second round playoff game (1-8).

When the T-Birds won the 2017 WHL Championship, they defeated the Regina Pats.  Since that loss in the league final to Seattle, Regina is just 6-8 in the playoff and missed the postseason this spring.  Even with a generational players like Connor Bedard in their lineup last spring, they were eliminated in the first round. 

Teams like Portland, Kelowna and Saskatoon are perennial playoff clubs but haven't captured the big prize in over a decade, if at all. The pandemic years cost teams like the Winterhawks, Silvertips and even the Spokane Chiefs a shot at glory but only one team captures the Cup each year and had those two seasons played out if could have been someone else, such as Edmonton, Medicine Hat or Kamloops bringing home the chalice. 

Which brings us to the Thunderbirds. Yes, it was gut wrenching to see injuries pile up and most likely keep the team from the playoffs this spring but somewhere along the way in the life cycle of the WHL, you are bound to have a year such as the T-Birds just had. It's climbing up off the floor that will show the character of this organization. They've done it before, they can do it again.

Did you know that, since winning the Ed Chynoweth Cup in 2017, the Thunderbirds playoff record is 34-22 with another league title earned last spring?  Since enduring a three season playoff drought (2010, 2011, 2012), the Thunderbirds are 65-43 in the playoffs, claiming two league titles, four Western Conference Championships and a pair of U.S. Division Banners.

From a business side, a revenue stream side, you don't want to miss the playoffs. That's money in the bank, although a couple long playoff runs can make up for one missed postseason. But over the last decade only one other WHL team can come close to matching what the Thunderbirds have done.  

Is it Portland? They'd be in the mix but not quite. They last won a league title twelve years ago, in 2013, then lost the final to Edmonton in 2014. In the decade since, they have not missed the postseason. They entered this spring's WHL playoffs with a 32-38 playoff mark since that last trip to the championship series and are 8-0 through the first two rounds of these playoffs, as they head into the 2024 Western Conference Championship Series against Prince George. 

Kelowna? Since 2015 the Rockets have captured one Chynoweth Cup (2015) and gone 40-45 in postseason play after being eliminated in the second round this spring. They went to three straight Western Conference Championship series (2015,2016, 2017) but no trophies in the last ten seasons. 

No, the team that comes closest to what Seattle has done the last ten seasons would be the Edmonton Oil Kings. It's just outside the ten year window but eleven seasons ago they won the Chynoweth Cup then did it again in 2022. They can also claim the 2014 Memorial Cup. Since 2015 Seattle is 62-39 in the WHL postseason. Edmonton is 45-20. 

And guess what? Edmonton missed the playoffs in three of the last ten seasons, once after winning it all in 2014 and twice since winning it in 2022. So making the playoffs every season, while nice, it isn't kiss of death should you miss out. It's all about using the down season or two to build back up.Then, it's what you do once you're in the playoffs that matters and the T-Birds have made it matter the most.  

Now, they look to do it again.  They have some pieces already in place with players like Cootes, Lovsin, Pickford, Davidson and Martorana. Other players like Hartmann, Parmar and Mathies have shown promise. A few younger players are ready to show they belong.  

Now the upcoming WHL Draft becomes crucial.  Seattle has two picks in the top 23, including eleventh overall. They'll need to hit on those two high selections just as they have done with so many of their top picks over the last decade. They should make two picks in this summer's CHL Import Draft that will need to impact the roster.  What happens off the ice over the next couple of months is going to greatly impact what happens on the ice between 2025 and 2028. 

Post Mortem

It has been a few days now since the season ended.  And even though we knew it was coming to an end last Sunday, the finality of the 2023-24 hockey season has come all too sudden, as in, what do I do now?

The last time the T-Birds missed the WHL playoffs, and they did miss the postseason three years in a row between 2010 and 2012, I think you can say they got the deserved results.  Well, maybe not so much the 2011-2012 season when they actually ended up with three more wins than Everett but lost out on the last playoff spot because the Silvertips had more loser points. Of course the T-Birds consolation prize was winning the draft lottery that spring and selecitng Mat Barzal. So, it all worked out in their favor.

But those three non playoff years were a dark time in the franchise history. Too many draft picks that didn't pan out. This past season though, they deserved a better fate.  When the team gathered late last summer for training camp, they truly believed they were not just a playoff contender, but a team that could potentially compete for home ice advantage in round one. Sure they would have a lot of young rookies, but they would be surrounded by seasoned, championship caliber veterans.

Even without Kevin Korchinski returning from the NHL, a 7-1 start seemed to vindicate those beliefs. Were there some losses along the way this season that should have gone into the win column, if not for a mistake here or there? Sure, but the number one culprit was  injury, or more correctly, INJURIES plural. Exactly 200 games lost. And the number one injury was the one that took Nico Myatovic out of the lineup for half a season. And of course, it didn't need to happen.  An injury suffered because of jubilation and raw emotion. He was hurt in a dogpile after an exhilirating comeback win at home in mid-October. A 6-4 win over Brandon when Seattle scored four goals in the final minute to erase a two goal deficit.  As they say, stuff happens. Won the battle, lost the war.

It was Myatovic's fourth game back from his first NHL camp with Anaheim.  In those four games he would score two goals and add three assists and be a +3 player.  He was off to a great start and potentially on his way to eclipsing his 30 goal effort the season before. Instead, limited to just 34 games, he scored just nine times. At the time of the injury, Seattle was 4-1. By the time he returned, they were 14-22-2-0.

That injury occured October 17th. He wouldn't play again until January 20th. Seattle was already without Jordan Gustafson, who was still recovering from offseason surgery and wouldn't get into the lineup for another month. Gus ended up with 12 goals in just 32 games played. That would put him on pace for 25 for a full season. We forget Sawyer Mynio was out for a nearly a month at that time and then Seattle would lose Gracyn Sawchyn for a month as well. 

What do those four players all have in common? They're all NHL drafted players. That was 69 goals returning from the previous season, all out of the lineup for a good chunk of the first half of the year. On a team that knew it would be scoring challenged, those losses were devastating. They would suffer more injuries moving forward, losing Coster Dunn, Simon Lovsin, Hyde Davidson, Sam Popowich as well as Gustafson twice more. While not an injury, goalie Scott Ratzlaff, the team MVP, was away for a month at World Juniors with Team Canada.

By the time Seattle got the gang almost all back together again so they could put on a 8-4-0-1 push at season's end, they had gone from 7-1-0-0 to 19-34-2-0. They got a little healthier just a little too late. 

Still, with that young untested, lineup for most of the season, they missed the playoffs by just nine points, or five wins. Cut those games lost due to injury from 200 to say, just 125, and I bet the T-Birds find five more Ws.  Halve those games lost to injury from 200 to 100 and I bet I could find ten more wins. Against the team they lost that last playoff spot to, Spokane? they went 4-1-1-0. Versus the five teams in front of them in the standing the T-Birds were 12-8-1-0, while never being at full strength. In fact, take out Portland and Prince George and Seattle was 20-22-1-0 versus the rest of the Western Conference with their injury depleted, young roster.

Seattle was 0-4 against the Vancouver Giants but if they have a healthier lineup for just two of those games, surely they could have pulled out one or two wins? They lost a December game to Vancouver, 2-1 in overtime, with no Myatovic, no Gustafson and no Ratzlaff available.  

Heck, they were just ten points back of Victoria for seventh place and eleven points back of Vancouver for 6th. And for those saying injuries are just an excuse? Let's look at that Victoria team, a team Seattle, despite their injuries, beat three times in five tries. 

On January 20th, the Royals were ten games over .500 with two months remaining, sitting in second place in the B.C. Division and in a battle with Wenatchee for fourth place in the Western Conference. Then, like the T-Birds they got rocked by injuries, often not having enough skaters to dress for a game, calling up 15 and 16 year olds to fill the void. 

Go back through the WHL weekly injury reports for that time period and look at not just the number of players the Royals were missing, but who those players were. Some of their best players were out long term. They went 5-16-2-1 from that point on and dropped to fourth place in their division and seventh in the conference. They went from ten games above .500 to one game below. They went from battling for home ice in round one, to fighting for their playoff lives. Injuries aren't an excuse, they are a fact.

Seattle lost eight games this season by one goal and seven more by two goals, meaning there was probably an empty net goal by the opponent involved in some of the finishes of those game. fifteen games where a healthy team could have potentially changed a loss to a win.

Now, all that being said Seattle was still in the playoff hunt up until the final week of the season. Yes, it would have taken a blazing finish and a lot of help outside of their control, but that young lineup fought to keep the team alive.  Three rookie forwards finished with double digits in goals, a fourth just missed that mark.  Because of the unexpected increase in their ice time everyone of the rookies on the roster were better, more confident players when the season ended, then when it started.

Seattle carried ten rookies through the course of the season and quite often eight of them were in the lineup on a nightly basis.  Twelve players skated in their first WHL game this season. Six others entered the season with just one or two games of WHL experience under their belts. Combined those 18 players skated in 530 games this season. Combined, that's equivalent to almost eight WHL seasons.

What does it mean? Does it guarentee a successful season in 2024-25? Nothing is guaranteed but it does give the T-Birds a terrific building block going into next year. It means all those young players know what it takes to compete at the WHL level. It means great competition for roster spots and playing time next fall. 

Seattle will lose most of their leadership group. With Myatovic and Gustafson signed by their NHL teams the chances of either of them coming back to play as a 20 year old next year is very slim. They lose their top point producer (Jeremy Hanzel) and leading goal scorer (Eric Alarie) as well as the versatile Sam Popowich. Luca Hauf would be a two-spotter (Import and 20 year old) so it is highly unlikely that he will be back but not out of the realm of possibility.

Right now your 20s would be Nathan Pilling and Owen Boucher. Two solid players but only two.That's it.  They'll have to find a third 20 year old. Again, it could be Hauf but most likely not. I would anticipate the Thunderbirds making two selections in this summer's Import Draft. With the loss of Hanzel I'd think an impactful 18 or 19 year d-man would be on the team's radar. 

Maybe they don't need to make two Import selections. Perhaps they'll only need to pick once. Not sure, but since they only carried one Import on the roster this past season, they may still have the rights to winger Jesse Kiiskinen. The T-Birds selected the Finn in the first round of last summer's Import Draft. He was a 2023 third round pick of the NHL's Nashville Predators. Playing in Finland's pro league, Liiga, with the Pelicans, he had just 10 points (4g, 6a) in 38 games. Would Nashville prefer he play top line minutes at age 19 in the WHL? Of course they could also keep him in Finland or sign him and put him in the AHL with Milwaukee.

The Import Draft, of course, isn't the only draft to look forward to, just the one that will have the most immediate impact. But there are a couple of drafts that will greatly affect the team's future. In May the Thunderbirds will have the 11th pick in round one of the WHL Prospects Draft. Most recently when picking around that spot in the draft order the T-Birds have come away with the likes of Kevin Korchinski, Braeden Cootes and Tij Iginla.

The T-Birds will also have the top selection in round two, 23rd overall.  That's a similar spot in the draft order to when the T-Birds selected Keegan Kolesar and Ethan Bear.

Seattle will also have the second overall pick in the WHL U.S. Prospects Draft.  Can Seattle draft an impact player and convince him at some future date to commit to the WHL? Stay tuned to an important offseason

My T-Birds Three Stars for the Season:

Third Star: D Sawyer Mynio.  The Vancouver Canucks signed draft pick was selected as the T-Birds Defenseman of the Year. On a team with Jeremy Hanzel, that's saying a lot.  He was second on the team in scoring.  He had career highs in goals, assist and points and it wasn't even close. Five of his 16 goals, nearly one third, were game winners. Over two-thirds of his goals (11) were on the power play as his one-timer has become a lethal weapon.  He plays with a bit of a mean streak, can be physical but also has a touch of finesse.  His skating is becoming Theodore/Korchinski-esque.  It will be interesting to see if he gets at least a summer camp invite by Team Canada, for next winter's World Junior Championships

Second Star: D Jeremy Hanzel.  He led the team in scoring, the first T-Birds defenseman to do that since Theodore back in 2013-14.  He was the only defenseman in the WHL to lead his team in point production and just one of two in the entire CHL to do it. He went from an undrafted free agent to a WHL Champion to an NHL drafted and signed prospect.  In his time with the T-Bird every aspect of his game improved by leaps and bounds but none more so than his leadership. With Korchinski not returning he stepped up and quaterbacked the power play. That unit ended up with better numbers this season than the power play of that stacked T-Birds team a year ago.

First Star: G Scott Ratzlaff.  A workhorse. The first T-Birds goalie since Rylan Toth to get into more than 50 games. And that is quite a feat considering he was away from the team for a month with Team Canada at the World Juniors in Sweden.  He played in 52 of the 59 games he was available for this past season.  He earned the team wins in a couple of games they had no business winning, when he made 62 and 52 saves respectively. He thrives on the workload.  He wants that crease every night. He should once again be in the mix next winter to man the crease for Canada at the World Juniors. Hopefully, next spring he finally gets an opportunity to take the crease in a WHL playoff game for Seattle.

Not Now, Gotta Run

It has been to say the least, a very busy last month for the Seattle Thunderbirds.  And there is no rest for the weary. After playing seven games in ten days, the team had barely time to catch their breath before starting a stretch of eight games in 14 days, with six of those games on the road.

Now I'm not asking for sympathy.  The schedule was known long ago and traditionally the T-Birds  backload their schedule with the majority of the games coming the second half of the season.  There was a stretch at this point last season in which the team played 11 games in 21 days, or on average, a game every other day. They entered the playoffs last spring after playing their last six regular season games over a nine game span.

It's not something new. They have a voice when it comes to drawing up the schedule. And they also knew they would have a vastly different looking team than the one that won the league championship last May. They knew they would be utilzing a younger, inexperienced roster. To quote one of the great coaching cliches "It is what it is." The team didn't fear that scenario though. With all that, they entered the regular season on September 30th believing they would not only compete for a playoff spot, but potientally a top four spot in the conference if everything broke the right way.

What could not be predicted though was the number of games that would be missed due to injury.  It is literally on a record pace. Through the first 49 games they have lost 150 games to various ailments. And we're not talking the simple bumps and bruises that keep a player out of the lineup for a game or two.  These injuries aren't showing up on the weekly report as day-to-day, but instead are week-to week and month-to-month. By the time we hit March 24th and the regular season finale, don't be surprised if the number of games lost to injury hits the 200 mark.

Seattle really hasn't played that poorly over the last month. They've just been inconsistent. All things considered, the injuries, the busy schedule (featuring eleven games against teams .500 or better), and they're 6-9.  The record of most of the teams around them in the standings are similar. The problem is that they haven't gained any traction.  At the WHL trade deadline, they were six points out of a playoff spot.  A month later they're seven points back and now time is running out.

We knew scoring was going to be a problem and that has played out as Seattle averages a league low 2.7 goals per game. They've scored just one goal in each of their last three games. They knew they would lose four of their top five scorers from their championship team.Then the guy they thought would be their top returning point producer, Kevin Korchinski, surprised many and stuck in the NHL with the Chicago Blackhawks. All of a sudden your top five offensive weapons from last season are gone and seven of your top twelve.

No worry right? They had their second leading goal scorer from last season back. That is, until Nico Myatovic got hurt just a few games into the schedule and missed half the season and is still working his way back to full strength after a three month layoff. The Jordan Gustafson situation seems like a cruel joke.  The guy can't catch a break, at least not of the good variety. Then just as the team was getting healthy they lose Sam Popowich, Coster Dunn and Simon Lovsin to long term injury in back-to-back-to-back games.

Combined that trio has played just once in the last ten games. That's 30 goals out of the lineup on a team struggling to put pucks in the back of the net. Dunn and Lovsin had combined for eleven goals in the first eight games post-Christmas. And it doesn't appear relief is coming anytime soon.

Remember the good old days when all Seattle was doing was counting the days until Colton Dach would join their stacked lineup? It was a simpler time back then, wasn't it? The Thunderbirds margin for error this season was as thin as a sheet of paper. The injuries have been like one of those trick birthday candles that you just can't blow out. It just keep re-igniting and anything you throw on the fire in an attempt to stop the burning, just makes the flames reach higher.

There used to be a show up on the TV in Canada called, I believe, "This Hour has 22 Minutes". That could be the title of this year's T-Birds season becasue that is about how long they had a complete healthy roster available, 22 minutes.

And yet here we are with 19 game remaining and there is still a chance to snag a playoff spot.  It won't be easy and they'll probably need outside help along the way, but it is doable. There is no magic elixir that is going to heal up the wounds faster but Seattle has shown that, short bench or not, they can compete with every team on their schedule. But it has to start now.

My T-Birds Three Stars for the busy stretch:

Third Star: F Nishaan Parmar. The confidence that comes from scoring your first WHL goal must be quite a tonic because Parmar seems to have flipped a switch and brought his game to another level.  Like most of the rookies on the team he is still a work in progress but he has taken a big stride in the right direction.  So much so that he is getting top minutes on the power play and taking key faceoffs.

Second Star: D Jeremy Hanzel. I know a lot of folks out there are wondering why Seattle didn't trade away their stud defenseman, but where would this team be without him? He's not just their leading scorer but he eats up so many minutes on the back end. With captain Jordan Gustafson out of the lineup, he has been the defacto on ice leader. It may not sound fancy but he is the most reliable player on the ice.

First Star G Scott Ratzlaff. Most nights he's all that separates this team from a tough, late game loss and a blow out defeat. He's facing a mountain of rubber most games. I think we forget he is still very young at 18 and it is his first season as a true number one. But he goes about his job without complaint.  Don't look at the win/loss record or the goals against average. Check the save percentage that is at .904.  That's the real indicator of just how good he has been. He won't get a snif at any post season league honors, but he has been one of the best netminders in the league the last two months.

A Tale of Two Cities

What a difference twenty four hours can make in the life of a young Thunderbirds hockey team.  The game Friday at home against Prince George was the best game they had played since their last win back on December 13th in Spokane. It was not a perfect game as they still are struggling to finish, but against one of the best team's in the CHL they went toe to toe and probably deserved something other than the 2-1 loss.

They were direct, they got pucks in deep, they won puck battles and put shots to the net. In the defensisve zone they got into shot lanes. Their sticks were active knocking down passes and they played with some physicality.  I thought they were focused on playing their best agaisnt one of the best.

Satruday in Everett it was almost the complete opposite. And you might be asking why? Why couldn't the T-birds bring that same focus and effort they had against the Cougars into the game against the Silvertips? I think one of the lessons that young players struggle to grasp early in their careers, is the need to make adjustments from game to game.

Everett plays a different style than PG.  Just as Portland plays a different brand than, say, Tri-City.  So Seattle's young squad may have been focused on doing the same things against Everett as they did the night before against Prince George. That's okay until you have to adjust to how your opponent is playing. 

Against PG Seattle was able to get pucks in deep in the offensive zone and get into the board battles quickly.  Everett is a quicker team and Seattle didn't adjust to that speed.  As head coach Matt O'Dette said about Everett "They're a team that gets up and down the ice very fast. They're on you quick. When you're trying to skate the puck up the ice (against that), if you're not letting the puck work for you and moving it, getting to a place where you can head man the puck, they're going to chase you down."

Again, it really comes down to consistency of effort because back on December 30th, Seattle was able to do that against Everett. They did it even in their 7-1 loss to Everett in mid-December when they outshot the Tips in Everett 44-35. It's just making the mental adjustments from game to game, opponent to opponent.  It's the part of the game that probably takes the most teaching. 

I think another issue is physical maturity. When you're young and consistently playing against older players. Back to back games can be a drain. Physically going up against an older, NHL drafted player on back to back nights is going to be taxing. These young players are learning that firsthand.  We saw it a few years back when players like Ciona, Schaefer, Davidson and Korchinski were young and green.  Then we saw those players mature physically and turn the tables. It's a process. 

But you can't learn it if you don't go out and play.  This is why you'll see a young Braeden Cootes or even a 15-year old callup like Brendan Rudolph out on the ice against an opponent's top line. It gives them that first hand opportunity to know how much they need to grow. It many not seem like it now, but they are learning from those situations.  I remember quite vividly Shea Theodore's 16 year old season. He finished -36. He was thrown out on the ice in all situations.  He wasn't benched if he made a mistake. He learned, he grew, he absorbed the lessons and a couple of seasons later he was +19 and a NHL first round draft pick.

They're going to have some good shifts and they're going to have some bad shifts. They're going to have some good games and they're going to have some nights where they are off.  The goal is to reduce those bad shifts and off games as they grow in their WHL careers. You can't learn every lesson in practice.

What's the first thing a U16 player says after his first game in the WHL? almost to a man they say it's a much faster game. What's the first thing a freshly drafted 18 year says at his first NHL camp? The players are bigger and faster. You don't adjust to that change overnight. The game slows down as you get more repitition. And when you think you have it figured out one game, the next game will challenge that thinking.

Nineteen. The T-Birds have nineteen rookies in their system.  Many of them have already played at least one WHL game this season. In all likelihood, they're going to get two top 25 draft picks this May.  So that's a minimumm of 21 players who will be fighting for roster spots the next two to three seasons. Those players are spread out over four drafts. That's competition. Iron sharpens iron. 

Not all of those players are going to spend 4-5 seasons with the Thunderbirds but they're going to push each other to be their best.  Not all the players will become Shea Theodore's. The cream will rise to the top and that's how you build a winner.  The organization won't hit on 100% of those prospects but if they can develop 30-40 percent, they'll be a winning team again, sooner rather than later.  That process has already begun.  Probably sooner than the organization wanted to because of all the injuries this season. So it may be a curse right now, it could end up being a blessing down the road.

My T-Birds Three Stars for the Weekend:

Third Star: C Coster Dunn.  He just seems primed for an offensive breakout.  You could see that shorthanded goal he scored against Everett coming.  He seems to be feeling more comfortable in his own skin as he becomes relied upon more.  He still has work to do but he had a goal and an assist in the two games and that has him pointing in the right direction.

Second Star: W Nathan Pilling.  A goal in each game.  His shooter's mentality is a reason for that. Hopefully there is more of that to come the second half as he gets more comfortable in his new surroundngs. In five games since being acquired from Edmonton he has four points (2g, 2a). What I've observed from him off the ice, he's got the look and the demeanor of a team leader.  

First Star: G Scott Ratzlaff. Simply brilliant on Saturday night in Everett. He made 54 saves and everyone of them kept the T-birds in the game, giving them a chance until the final minute. One of the best singular goalie performances I've seen in 20-plus years with the T-Birds. Not just because of the volume of shots faced, but the number of high quality scoring chances he denied.  In two games this weekend he stopped 87 shots.  

  

It's the Little Things

I see a lot of parallels between this version of the T-Birds and the 2021 pandemic season team.  Maybe not in the results, as the T-Birds put together a decent record in those 23-games, going 10-12-0-1, but there are other similarities.  

To be fair, that team didn't go through a series of significant injuries like this season's team is experiencing. But like this year's team, that team was quite young with just one 20 year old, Kelit Jeri-Leon on the roster. But the young players that year weren't sixteen year olds, they were seventeen year olds. 

Twelve players who played in at least one game that 2021 season were listed as rookies, though one, goalie Jackson Berry, was 18 years old with limited games previously in the league.  Fifteen players who have skated in at least one game for Seattle this season are rookies, none of them over the age of seventeen. Twelve of them are age 16 or younger. 

Statistically, Seattle is the second youngest team in the WHL this season but we are splitting hairs here.  According to Alan Caldwell, Calgary has the youngest team with an average age of 17.70 year old.  The T-Birds and Medicine Hat have a roster with an average age of 17.79.  But with their key injuries being to their older players (age 19 or older), my guess is that, on a nightly basis, the T-birds are actually icing the youngest team night in and night out.  

Here's an example. In their last game Calgary dressed eight players classified as rookies. Two of them were age 18, three were 17 year olds and the other three were age 16. In their last game Medicine Hat dressed eight rookies as well. They break down like this: one 18-year old, three 17 year olds and four 16 year olds. Both Calgary and Medicine Hat have their fare share of second year players, aged 17 and 18.

In their last game the T-Birds dressed nine players classified as rookies. Of those nine three were age seventeen.  The other six?  All age 16. The T-Birds also skated two other 17 year olds but both Hyde Davidson and Bryce Pickford are no longer classified as rookies, having played full-time with the team a year ago.  The Thunderbirds dressed just two 20-year olds because Eric Alarie was out injured,  then lost 19 year old Jordan Gustafson for the third period because of injury as well.  Meanwhile, 19-year old defenseman Braeden Wynne was a healthy scratch. 

The T-birds are currently carrying just four other 19 year olds outside of the ones listed above. Myatovic (inj) and Hauf (WJC) were not in the lineup while Pilling and Boucher played. Sawyer Mynio and Scott Ratzlaff are their most experienced 18 year olds, with both being in their third season. Of course Ratzaff has been away from the team having made Canada's World Junior roster. The T-Birds only other two 18 year olds are Coster Dunn and Cru Hanas.

How does that compare with the T-Birds 2021 pandemic season roster?  Well, of that team's 12 players listed as rookies, as we said, one was 18 (Berry), four were age 17 (Schaefer, Popowich, Milic, and Hanzel), five were age 16 (Gustafson, Korchinski, Myatovic, Ludwig and Penner) while two were age 15 (Ratzlaff and Oremba). Meanwhile, players such as Ciona, Sanders and Roulette were just 17 but had played in enough games the previous season to lose their rookie status.  Also on the roster were three 19 year olds (McNelly, Gottfried and Rybinski) and  five 18 year olds (Davidson, Rempe, Bauer, Mount and Bateman) to go along with the 20 year old Jeri-Leon.  

So their are definite similarities. But there are two big differences. One will be the number of games played. Again, that team only played 23 games over two and a half months.  This year's team has already played in 32 games and will play another 36 before all is said and done.  

The other difference? That 2021 team had nothing to play for but to gain experience. There was no playoff spot to fight for, no pennants or Chynoweth Cup were on the line. Basically, there was no pressure on them. That's not the case for this year's team.  They are fighting to earn a playoff spot. They put expectations on themselves when the season began. The margin for error was thin.  They could not afford injuries among their better, veteran players. Unfortunately those injuries happened. 

This team is trying to get through this rough patch where every mistake or lapse seems to find the back of the net.  The offense is struggling to score goals and the goaltending has been sporadic.  The hope was always to get healthy and make a second half push. Is that still doable with this young team? We'l soon find out.

My T-Birds Three Stars for the last two weeks of 2023.

Third Star: G Grayson Malonoski. He was solid in two starts and one game where he came on in relief. With Scott Ratzlaff returning soon from World Juniors, I would expect the 16-year old to be returned to his U18 team in Saskatoon, but it looks like he has a bright future in goal with Seattle over the next 3-to-4 years.

Second Star: D Jeremy Hanzel.  He is doing what he is supposed to do as a 20 year old defenseman. He's providing leadership, offense and playing a complete 200 foot game.  In the absence of the injured veterans he has stepped up big time.

First Star: W Simon Lovsin. Speaking of complete players, Lovsin is showing signs that he can be just that for Seattle. He has a scoring touch with three goals in three games, plays physical and stands up for his teammates.  I think his play since returning from the Christmas break will catch the eye of NHL scouts if he can continue it through the rest of the second half.