You can certainly lose games even when you play at your best. You can occassionally steal a game when you'r not at your top form. But more often than not, you get the results you deserve. Unfortunately, that's the case for the T-Birds right now.
After a solid start, winning their first two games of the season, they have now dropped three in a row and in all three cases the team that played better was the winner. Here's a hint, it wan't Seattle.
Mindy you, they didn't get skated off the ice. All three losses were winnable games. But you can't win if you don't play to your identity or play with your best habits. The T-Birds are struggling to get pucks up the ice. Defensive zone giveaways have been killers. In the loss up in Langley Saturday night, the Giants first three goals can be directly or indirectly attributed to the Thunderbirds turning the puck over. Sometimes that's a result of the pressure put on them by the Vancouver forecheck, other times it's a result of poor decisions with the puck or an errant pass.
A lot of the shots the 'Birds are getting are hitting the opposing goalie right in the chest. There's not enougth traffic in front of the opposing goalie. It's not necessarily a bad thing that shots are hitting the goalie but you have to have a net front presence to get to rebounds to knock in those second or third chance opportunities.
The T-Birds are scoring one or two pretty goals, those Sportscenter highlight type goals. That may look good on the resume but while Seattle is doing that, the opponents are score three, four greasy goals and getting the wins. Passing is an issue for the 'Birds not just in the defensive zone but in the attacking end as well. Too often O-zone opportunities are quickly erased by a pass too easily picked off or is off the mark either too far out in front of or too far behind a teammate's stick.
The good news is we're only five games into the season, tied for the fewest in the league. There are 63 games left to go. You're just a game below .500 but can quickly turn that around by getting back to fundamentals. Getting more games in should help. Well guess what? Over the next two and a half weeks there are nine game on the schedule. Time to put the wheels back on the track and get going.
My T-Birds Three Stars of the Weekend:
Third Star: G Marek Sklenicka. Saturday's game could have been uglier had more of the T-Birds D-zone breakdowns been converted into goals by the Giants. But Sklenicka made a number of ten bell saves, doing his best to keep the game within striking distance.
Second Star: W Noah Kosick. He has points in all five games on four goals and three assists. He's scoring on 25% of the shots he's taken. He's on a 54 goal and 95 point pace for the season. He's doing his part.
First Star: C Brock England. He was the T-birds best player this past weekend, especially in the loss at home Friday. Opposing teams are certainly targeting him yet he still scored a pair of goals and added an assist. His speed is his best weapon but he showed on his goal Saturday that speed works in tandem with his scoring touch. And the scary thing is, I don't think he is at the top of his game just yet.
