Tbirds get their first road win...

Tbirds defeat the Winterhawks in Portland tonight 4-0 to get their first road win and improve to 2-6 on the season.

The game tonight was relatively uneventful despite being an important win for Seattle. Prab Rai had two goals, Greg Scott added a shorthanded breakaway goal and Calvin Pickard picked up his first WHL victory and shutout in the same night.

My comments about the game last night in Everett are far more important.

Ugh... first off... I hate going to Everett... some beast of a woman who appropriately had a cowbell hung around her neck (too mean?) taunted me in my Glen Goodall jersey before I had even sat down and I then proceeded to watch the Tbirds come out flat, see Jake DeSerres give up a ton of rebounds and the team give the game away in the first 20 minutes.

Look... Everett is a tough place to play even though the fair weather fans (already?) of Everett couldn't even sell the house out for a Seattle game on a Friday night. Still... 7100 people clanging cowbells after being down 3-0 early in the game is pretty tough to come back from. I still can't figure out why the defense is playing so poorly... I know the defense was obviously better in Portland tonight but come on... its Portland. DeSerres played poorly but his defense did not help him out on more than one occasion. The defense has to start getting better... that's the bottom line. With Hickey back... this defense has to be at least average to decent, not average to horrible and I still believe things will turn around.

Seattle nearly got back into the game as they cut the score to 3-2 on a sweet end to end rush by Hickey and then had numerous chances before Chaffin took and unfortunate extra penalty in a scrum with everyone's favorite Silvertip Kyle Beach. Everett took advantage with the Power Play goal, the 4-2 lead and never looked back.

I know this sounds strange and would have sounded a lot more prophetic earlier today... but this team will improve and I think they can dig out of this hole. The game tomorrow night in Chilliwack is a nice chance to get 2 more points and finish the weekend with 4 out of 6 points on the road.