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.