Where do we go from here?

Time to (finally) wrap up the season.  Obviously, everyone was a tad disappointed that the Tbirds weren't able to make the playoffs and didn't manage to play better over the 2nd half of the season.  That being said, I believe there are a handful of reasons to be cautiously optimistic for the next few seasons. Here is where I think the team goes from this point forward:

First, the good news... by missing the playoffs, the Tbirds put themselves in a position to win the Bantam Draft Lottery. The smart money is on Mathew Barzal being selected by Seattle but there are a few other names that I imagine would have an outside shot at being taken by Seattle. Barzal is a natural scorer who should be able to develop into a high point producer by the time he is 17 or 18. I watched some scouting film on him and was impressed by his skating and scoring ability. He is a tad on the smaller side at 5'9" and 152 lbs but smaller skaters don't really bother me too much when you have this much skill.  Chances are good he will probably grow as well.

There are some other names to keep your eye on and some players that Seattle will most definitely target with the #20 and #25 selections in the draft... but Barzal is almost a lock for the top pick.  For all Bantam Prospect news, you should really visit the Western Elite Hockey Prospects blog.

Getting a kid like Barzal is exciting but he won't be a factor until the 2013-14 season at the least. Let's take a look at what we might see out of Seattle in 2012-13.

We have to consider the situation with the 20 year old players.  Calvin Pickard will not be back. Dave Sutter will not be back as a "two-spotter" and I don't expect Braeden Laroque to be in the mix either. That leaves 4 players for 3 spots and I wouldn't be surprised to see all 4 come to camp and battle it out.  Brad Deagle is pretty much a lock in my mind. Seattle will need some veteran presence on defense next season and Deagle logged some very good minutes for the Tbirds this season.  Luke Lockhart is the captain and despite the lack of offensive production, I wouldn’t be very surprised if returned as captain next season. I know that some fans lament 20 year old captains that don't score a lot (see: Nielsen, Lindsay) but if you take a look around the WHL, you dont necessarily see a lot of 20 year old players leading the league in scoring. Yes, yes, I'm aware that Shinnimin lead the league in scoring and he was 20 years old, but following him was Stone (19), Rattie (18), Hughesman (20), Weal (19), Holland (19), Etem (19), St. Croix (18), Ferland (19) and Bartschi (19).  Having a 20 year old who scores a ton is clearly beneficial, but often times if your 20 year old is that good, he’s playing in the AHL (see: Pickard, Calvin). I wouldn't say that Lockhart is a lock for the roster, but I would be very surprised if he didn’t make it back.  That leaves Brendan Rouse and Chance Lund battling it out for the 3rd and final spot on the roster. Earlier in the year I thought Chance Lund was making a very good case for being the guy for that final spot but as the season wore on, Lund seemed to wear down and his point production slowed as well. He tallied 17 points in the first 24 games of the season and then only 15 points in the final 43 games. Rouse, who can kill penalties and is a responsible two way player and would project out to nearly the same point total as Lund over a 72 two game season. My best guess: Deagle for sure, Lockhart likely, Rouse tentatively, and Lund needing a big camp to prove he belongs on the team over Rouse.

Import Draft: The QMJHL will select first in the Import Draft followed by the WHL and OHL subsequently.  Seattle will pick 3rd in the WHL rotation which will be 8th overall in the draft and 8th in the 2nd round as well.  Last season, Gatineau selected RW Tomas Hyka 8th overall and he posted 64 points in 50 games with Gatineau. Keep in mind that the QMJHL is generally a higher scoring league than the WHL. So Seattle should be able to pick up one pretty useful top 6 forward with their 8th overall selection. Very few teams select in the 2nd round of the draft, but one of the teams that did last season was Tri-City who selected Malte Stromwall. Stromwall had 27 points this season for the Americans. Seattle will likely select a player with their 2nd round pick but I wouldn't expect much out of that selection. I wouldn't be surprised to see Seattle select a defender with their top pick to help round out the depth.  I also wouldn't be terribly shocked to see them select a goaltender but it might be tough to convince a goaltender to come over to play for a young team that just finished beating up Calvin Pickard.

The rest of the squad projects out in this rough form.

Defense - Deagle (20), Wardley (18), Theodore (17) and Hauf (17) are locks. Green should have a chance to stick but he needs to improve and they might try him as a forward as well. Kevin Wolf will likely have a very good chance to make the team and I have to hop that 2nd round selection Austin Douglas has improved. When I look at the defensive depth of the team I can't help but feel like Seattle probably needs to select a defender with one of their Import selections. Either that or draft a forward and trade one of the current forwards for a depth defender.

Offense - Lockhart (20), Jacobs (19), Alos (19), Swenson (19), Sanvido (19), Doty? (19), Elliot? (19), Hickman (18), Troock (18), Honey (18). That is amazingly 10 forwards who could be back without including any 17's or 16s. I'm not convinced that Elliot and Doty will be back but if they each go home and work on their strength, conditioning, skating, flexibility, etc. they will probably be back. That leaves very few spots left and that is also the reason why I half expect to see a forward traded for a defender.  Gropp will hopefully sign and be here next season. Daniel Wray will probably get a long look in training camp and Michael Holub played very well in camp last year and could be a possible 16 year old on the roster next season.

Goaltending - Cotton (18) and.... ummm... I'm not sure.... Danny Mumaugh was in camp last year as a 15 and I know he visited and likely practiced with the team toward the end of the season.  Beyond that I'm not really sure where they might go here.  Nolan Kruizenga was in camp last year as well but neither him nor Mumaugh would be expected to be a starter as a 16 year old. Cotton has a HUGE opportunity here to work his tail off over the summer and seize the starting job for the Tbirds. Don't be surprised to see Russ acquire a veteran goaltender or possibly pass over Rouse and Lund and sign a 20 year old tender to solidify the back end.

As for a wrap on this season. I have to say that I was disappointed with how the team played but I wasn't very surprised. I think we all expected a lot more scoring out of players like Burke Gallimore, Colin Jacobs and Luke Lockhart and for whatever reason that simply didn't happen. Jacobs never seemed to get back on track after his off-season shoulder surgeries and maybe a full summer of hockey training will do him a lot of good. His skating and speed needs to improve a lot to take his game to the next level. He has a good  shot and pretty good hands as evidenced by hit goal scoring success in the shootout. The problem seems to be that he finds it very difficult to create quality chances during live action.  Gallimore just never seemed comfortable this season. I think it would be unfair to generalize his play as being without effort but I think it would be fair to say that his play was generally uninspired. Lockhart worked hard but didn't see the results that we all thought we might see. Let's not forget that the first half of the season was marred (in my opinion) by Marcel Noebels constantly trying to do everything himself and getting traded out of town in one of the better deals that General Manager Russ Farwell has made in a while.

There is reason for hope.... Connor Honey played inspired hockey after joining the team at mid-season and should only continue to improve. Branden Troock has loads of talent and just needs to figure out how to correctly use it. Seth Swenson was almost an afterthought in the Noebels deal and turned in 17 points in his 34 games with the Tbirds, including 10 goals. Jared Hauf didn't show much in the way of offensive prowess but showed that with improvement he should eventually turn into a shutdown top 2 defender. Shea Theodore is a work in progress and made plenty of 16 year old mistakes but also lead the team in assists, becoming the first Thunderbirds rookie to lead the team in assists since a guy named Thomas Hickey. Evan Wardley improved a ton over the course of the season and looks poised to grab a hold of a top 4 spot next season and become an intimidating physical force on the ice.

I'm not going to sit here and tell you that Seattle is headed for the Memorial Cup next year... but I do believe that most of their best players in the 2nd half of the season were their younger players. If those players continue to get better and veterans like Jacobs and Lockhart bounce back and have good seasons next year, this team should find themselves back in the playoffs provided that they find a goaltender to give them a fighting chance between the pipes.

Bonus content:

I meant to do some playoff predictions and then I got sick. Three of the first round series' are over and 4 more are on the verge of being over. Vancouver/Spokane is the only series tied at 2 games each.  This makes "predictions" a lot easier but I'm going to do it anyways.

In the Western Conference, the Americans took care of the Tips and will face the winner of the Vancouver/Spokane series while Portland will have home ice advantage for their series with the "#2" seeded Kamloops Blazers. I think Tri wins their series no matter what and I think Portland takes care of Kamloops in 6 games. I believe Portland will then defeat Tri-City in the Western finals shocking the Americans one or two times at the Toyota Center and advancing to the WHL Finals.

In the East, I think the Oil Kings are extremely tough and won't likely have very much trouble with Brandon (likely winner) to reach the Eastern Finals. Moose Jaw will have an extremely tough time with Medicine Hat and Emerson Etem and I think Medicine Hat will pull off an upset and reach the Eastern Finals where Edmonton will prevail to play the Winterhawks.

In the WHL finals... I really believe that Portland is the best team in the WHL but I think it might be too tough to prevail against the Americans and the Oil Kings without home ice advantage. Portland makes it extremely tough but the Oil Kings prevail in game 7 in Edmonton to win their first WHL Championship.

Then again... what have I said all season long... what do I know?