Young at Heart

An interesting question was posed to me after the Thunderbirds opening night, 3-2, win over Wenatchee Saturday.  Was this the youngest lineup the T-Birds have ever iced for a regular season game?  

Twenty players dressed for the game against the Wild and 12 of them were rookies, or sixty percent of the roster. Seven players, or thirty-five percent, were playing their first regular season WHL game.  Fifty percent of the defensemen were 16-years old or younger. Eighty-three percent of the the D corps was aged seventeen or younger. Fifteen year old d-man Vanek Popil made his regular season WHL debut.

Of the twelve forwards dressed, seven were rookies age 17-years old or younger. One third were actual 16-year olds. Fifty percent of the forward group had never played a game for the Thunderbirds prior to Saturday.

And even though Spencer Michnik got two starts last December, he is still classified as a WHL rookie, meaning both of  Seattle's goaltenders against the Wild were rookie netminders.  Backup Jaxson Dikur is fifteen.  

Twenty year old Sam Popowich entered the contest with 162 games of regular season WHL experience. Combined Popil, Dikur, Caleb Potter, Brayden Holberton, Kazden Mathies, Antonio Martorana and Samuel Charko, 35-percent of the lineup, had ZERO WHL regular season games under their belts.

The Thunderbirds did dress three 20-year olds in Popowich, Mekai Sanders and Trey Patterson, but had only two 19-year olds in the lineup (Luke Robson and Luca Hauf). But those two 19-year olds only had played in a combined 105 WHL games prior to Saturday night.

These five players, aged 19 and older, accounted for 573 of the 752 games of WHL regular season experience in the Seattle lineup. The rest of the roster combined had played in 179 games, and of that, 164 of those games belonged to 18-year old Coster Dunn and a pair of 17 year olds in Hyde Davidson and Bryce Pickford.

The only time Seattle may have come remotely close to a lineup this young was in the 23-game pandemic shortened season (spring of 2021) when they dressed just one 20-year old each game (Keltie Jeri Leon). but as I recall, the majority of that roster was age seventeen or eighteen and there was just two 15-year olds (Ratzlaff and Sam Oremba) and they rarely dressed or played.

Now as players away at NHL camps begin to trickle back to Kent, the T-Birds roster will get older.  Goaltender Scott Ratzlaff is already on his way back from Buffalo. Players such as Nico Myatovic, Gracyn Sawchyn and Sawyer Mynio will follow. Jordan Gustafson is in Vegas, but not skating following offseason surgery and won't be available until early November.

We may not know the status of Keven Korchinski and Jeremy Hanzel for a while though.  Trying to read the tea leaves out of Chicago and I wouldn't be surprised if Korchinski hung around with the Blackhawks well into November. Hanzel is getting a lot of positive media attention in Denver. Will the Avalanche sign him and send him to the AHL?

When some of those players return, players such as Dikur and Popil, because they're not eligible to play full time in the WHL this season, will be re-assigned.  The same will probably be true of 16-year old affiliated player Brayden Holberton (tis is why he was wearing a cage). But the return of some of those NHL drafted players won't make the T-Birds demonstrably older.

If Hanzel retruns, he takes up a 20-year old spot so Seattle, which curently has five 20-year olds on the roster (you can only keep three) will have to trade or release two, meaning the Seattle roster actually gets younger. Korchinski, Gustafson and Myatovic are 19-year olds but the other three, Ratzlaff, Mynio and Sawchyn are just 18.  It just seems they're older. Especially Ratzlaff and Mynio who have been around the team for three and two years respectively.  

So the reality is, this is going to be a very young Thunderbirds team this season and there will be a lot of growing pains that go along with it. It's what they call in the military OJT, on-the-job-training. Seattle got the win Saturday against a Wenatchee team going through the same process.  It was a nice win, but because of the young roster there are going to be some bumps along the ways, some big bumps. But that bumpy road won't be because of lack of effort, or not sticking to the systems or deploying good habits. It will be because of that youth and inexperience.

Just enjoy the bumpy ride because the last time the T-Birds went young (2021 pandemic season), it paid off in the end to the tune of one U.S. Division banner, two Western Conference championships and an Ed Chynoweth Cup. Will history repeat itself?

Luca Hauf, Seattle's only import player, missed all of training camp and the preseason because of visa issues, but the Krefeld, Germany native, got a couple of practices in before opening night and then made his presence felt in the lineup. He has a very strong compete level and is strong around the net. I thought he and Coster Dunn showed some good chemistry when they were on the ice together. Another solid, under the radar, offseason acquistion by GM Bil LaForge

My T-Birds Three Stars for Opening Night:

Third Star: D Bryce Pickford. Had one assist, on the Coster Dunn first period power play goal. He logged a ton of minutes but the effort level never fell off.  He was as strong at the end of the game as he was at the start.  Pickford does a terrific job of preparing himself physically, thus he has stamina.  He can play physical but also has a finesse element to his game as was evident on a near end-to-end rush in the third period that saw him carry the puck and weave through the Wild defense.

Second Star: G Spencer Michnik.  Michnik was steady making 28-saves to earn his third WHL win. He's 3-for-3 in starts as a T-Bird going back to last season. His pad control was mostly very good, moving pucks to the corners.  Of course the huge save was stopping a penalty shot late in the first period with Seattle leading 1-0.

First Star: C Sam Popowich. With a young team you need a veteran to lead the way.  That was Popowich all night Saturday and it culminated with the winning goal with 33-seconds remaining.  He won key faceoffs and was stellar in blocking shots, especially on the penalty kill. Watching him Saturday I was reminded some of Henrik Rybinski, who, as an older player on a young T-birds team a few years ago, would instinctively know to step up in the moment and deliver a key goal or play. 

The Page is Turned

Yes, there will be quite the celebration at the Thunderbirds home opener when they raise three banners to commemorate their record setting 2022-23 championship winning season, but with training camp upon us, for all intents and purposes, we have turned the page to a new year. The 2023-24 campaign has begun.

It was another short offseason, thanks to the long postseason run and Memorial Cup.  So, it's been just a few months since we were all out on the ShoWare Center Plaza honoring last season's team.  With training camp undeway, it is a bit strange not see the familiar faces of Jared Davidson, Lucas Ciona and Reid Schaefer taping up a stick or getting treatment back in Phil Varney's training room.  

Davidson was a Thunderbird for five years, Ciona and Schaefer for four years each.  It seems like just yesterday they were putting on the T-Birds colors for the first time. But, like so many before them they've moved on, making room for new, young faces to take their place.

So what should we expect from the 2023-24 team?  A lot of offense has moved out with the departure of the three just mentioned plus players like Kyle Crnkovic, Dylan Guenther and Brad Lambert. Those six players contributed 154 goals last season. The T-birds are going to have to find ways to manufacture offense.

They do have 30-goal scorer Nico Myatovic returning along with 18-goal scorer Gracyn Sawchyn.  But they're going to have to make do, at least for the first month of the season without another returning offensive weapon, Jordan Gustafson.  As you know Gus missed a good chunk of the second half of last season with an upper body injury.  He got back into the lineup late in the playoffs but was nowhere near 100-percent.  

The good news is that almost as soon as the team arrived back from the Memorial Cup, he had surgery, so he's already three months into his rehab.  The bad news is he still has at least two more months to go so we're probably not going to see him on the ice until early November.

Where can Seattle make up some of that lost offense? Well they can get some of it from their back end.  The T-birds boast some very good offensive defenseman and Kevin Korchinski, Jeremy Hanzel and Sawyer Mynio can all improve their offensive output. Bryce Pickford showed flashes from the backend last season as well and that has continued in training camp.  

But there are also young forwards who will see increased roles on this season's team that can pick up some of the slack too. From watching the early camp scrimmages it looks like players such as Coster Dunn, Nishaan Parmar and Simon Lovsin are primed to contibute full time.

The reality though is that the T-birds will not be the offensive juggernaut they were on their run to the Chynoweth Cup. Good team defense and strong goaltending are going to have to be their hallmarks this season. The good news is those elements have been part of their arsenal for the last decade.

On one of the T-Birds off days at the Memorial Cup in Kamloops I happened to bump into Nico Myatovic's dad, Marco, out near the merchandise tent.  We talked for about 15 minutes. Just as our conversation up in Prince George during the regular season, he was nothing but positive. It was such a shock then, to hear of his sudden passing a few weeks ago.  Condolences to Nico and his family on such a big loss.

I hope Hockey Canada gives Nico an opportunity to earn a spot on Team Canada for the upcoming IIHF World Junior Championships this winter.  We're talking about a 30-goal scorer from last season who was drafted 33rd overall into the NHL this summer by the Anaheim Ducks.  He's a terrific 200-foot player who can play in all situations. And as his playoff performance each of the past two seasons has shown, he shines under the bright lights. As a 19 year old, this is his last chance to be invited to the World Juniors, I think he's earned that chance. 

The Thunderbirds have used a lot of third round draft picks over the last decade as parts of a number of trades. So that haven't made a lot of picks in the third round of the WHL Prospects Draft.  But when they have had a third round pick, they've hit home runs with them. 

Remember Shea Theodore? Yeah, he was a third round pick. And while he chose the NCAA route and never played for the T-Birds, Layton Ahac was a third rounder by Seattle in 2016. He got drafted into the NHL by Las Vegas.  Seattle didn't have a third round pick in 2017 but in 2018 they chose some guy named Thomas Milic in Round Three of the draft. There was no third rounder in 2019 but in 2020 the Thunderbirds used their third round selection on Sawyer Mynio. 

The Mynio pick was the last time Seattle had a third round draft pick to spend. No third round selection in 2021 or 2022 and no third round pick this past spring. Until, that is, they made a deal to move up into the third round in order to pick defenseman Vanek Popil.  Watching Popil in his first training camp this week, he has a chance to continute that Thunderbird third round of the draft success.  He plays physical, he skates well and he looks to shoot the puck. He reminds me a little bit of Mynio. I had a scout tell me he has a little git of Tyrel Bauer in his game as well. 

Popil won't be eligible to be a full time T-Bird until the 2024-25 season but it will be interesting if he carries on the tradition of third round draft pick success. The potential is certainly there.