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2.17.2014

IMO, not a good weekend for the Birds

I will start out by admitting the Birds got 4 out of 6 points this weekend.  Not bad for a 3 in 3 weekend.
Against the 3 teams they played, they should have expected 6 points.
The way they played against those 3, I hardly think they deserved 2 points.

Lets start with Friday vs. Tri-City:

The game started out with a very tight checking, lack luster 1st period, getting the tempo of the game set by a team that clearly wanted to play more.
Second period, they tighten down the defense, and play a brand of hockey we have come to expect, and are rewarded with 2 very nice goals.
Come out in the 3rd, and continue that strong play through the first 8 minutes, adding another goal to be up 3-0.
Then a shorthanded goal against, a pp goal against, and an extra attacker goal against, and it is tied.
All three of those goals were set up by unneeded, undisciplined penalties.
It took a bad rebound goal with 26 seconds to go to pull out a win.
4 of the 6 power plays given up were caused by bad penalties.

Saturday night in Everett:

Everett dominated the 1st period, but some great goal-tending kept Seattle in it.
A slightly better 2nd period, highlighted by a shorthanded goal that was all determination by Sam McKechnie.
Start of the 3rd period was good for Seattle, scoring twice to take the lead.
But the rest of the game was hold on time, and if not for Taran Kozun in net, Everett would have had another couple.
3 of the 5 power plays given up were caused by bad penalties.

Sunday night against PG:

Start out the game in fire, scoring 3 goals in the first 7 minutes on a goalie that was clearly having an off night.
Then the team went to sleep, didn't show they cared, tuned out the game.
3 of the 6 power plays given up were caused by bad penalties.
Tried to turn it on after they were down 6-3, but PG could just play good smart defense and stop things.

So lets combine all this together:

In 3 games, they...
  • Blew a 3-0 lead twice.
  • Gave up another shorthanded goal.
  • Went 1 for 11 on the power play (scoring the only goal on the FIRST pp, so they went 0-10 after that)
  • Won two 1 goal games against the 7th and 8th place teams in the conference.
  • Got made to look like fools against a team that is not going to make the playoffs.
  • By my count, gave up 17 power plays, 10 of which were caused by bad or lazy penalties.
To make things even worse, other things I noticed all weekend long
  • A few players looked like they forgot what a team game is about.
  • Really bad sloppy giveaways.
  • Lazy backchecking.
  • Holding the puck way too long.
  • Sticking up for teammates at inopportune times.
Some people will argue with me that quite a few of those 10 penalties I am calling bad were questionable calls by the officials.  I am going to argue back that for a questionable call to be made against a player, that player has to have done something to bring the attention (whether warranted or not).  So don't give the official the chance to make a questionable call.

Lines for the weekend

A few people asked me why I thought they broke up the September 12, 2013 line (9-12-13).
I would probably be asking the same question.  Why break up a line that has been on a tear?
I can assume based on post game comments that coach wants to get Lipsberg going for the stretch run, and pairing him with Mathew Barzal and Justin Hickman gave them the best chance at that happening.
The odd thing I saw from this is it actually made the former Lethbridge line play an offensive roll, scoring 5 of the 10 goals on the weekend.

Conclusion

Call me crazy, but I don't think Seattle had a very good weekend at all.
I know Tyler disagrees with me on some of this, but what do you others think?
Have fun in the comment section.

8 comments :

Unknown said...

I didn't see Saturday's game, but I'm not sure I'd agree about Friday's game. Last year's team would have packed it in after given up a 3 goal lead in the third and been lucky to get one point out of the game. If I were to say the ref made a bad call that has nothing to do with a player drawing attention to himself, it is just the ref blowing the call.

As for Sunday's game, it looked like the entire team had no clue as to how to play defense. I hope losing the lead and the game to the #9 team wakes them up and gets them to take off their "cool jackets" as Romar would say. I think they should put Gropp back with Barzal and Hickman and put Lipsbergs with Delnov and Troock. I'm not sure about the PP units. I really dislike having a forward at the point and I think it shows with the SH goals this team gives up. The opposing teams don't just get the puck and dump it, they get it and look to break because there is only one defenseman on the ice. With 4 defensemen who can think offensively I don't think they should have to put a forward back there. I also don't really see the value of having two of your shutdown line playing the PP, I know they scored well in Lethridge last year, but they haven't been showing a lot of offensive touch (until recently) this year, maybe that is just because they are playing against the top line on the other side all the time.

Hopefully the team learns the lessons they can from this week and improve upon that in practice this week.

Anonymous said...

I wouldn't be so quick to write off PG as far as making the playoffs. No depth in goal but Edmonds is more than capable. Fiddler is on fire up front for them and they have been winning without Witala and Forsberg.

Sure they give 3 games in hand to both TC and Everett but they are only 6pts out of 7th place and Everett isn't showing that they want to make the playoffs the last couple of months.

Anonymous said...

As an add-on, PG has as many wins in their last 10 games as TC and Everett have combined each of their last 10. The Cougars might be peaking at the right time,

Jon said...

One clarification I wanted to make.

"If I were to say the ref made a bad call that has nothing to do with a player drawing attention to himself, it is just the ref blowing the call".

I am not saying a player drawing attention, I guess that was poorly worded. Lets take the last penalty Sunday against Bear for holding. I was looking straight at the play from the angle of the players coming at me. Bear tried to shield the puck, and the Cougar tried to go around him, so Bear put up his arm. The Cougar player hooked his arm, and went down. Clearly a bad call. But from the opposite angle where the official is at, all he can see is Bear, holding the arm of the Cougar, and taking away a scoring chance. If Bear takes differnt angle, puts out his leg instead of arm, etc, the official is not in put in a place of having to make a holding call.

Obviously, not all calls are this way, and some are truly just the wrong call.

Jon said...

Tri has 13 games left.
They are 3-5-1-1 in their last 10, so I will evenly separate out the other 3 games.
That would make them go 4-6-2-1 = 11 points the rest of the way.
That would give them 71 on the season.

PG has 10 games left, and 58 points right now. So they would need 13 points to tie.

PG's remaining schedule
1 game against Portland
3 games against Kelowna
2 games against Victoria
2 games against Spokane
2 games against Kamloops

Even if they sweep Kamloops, they still will need 9 points.
Possible, but not very likely given the schedule.

Anonymous said...

Great write up Jon! You make very good points on this post. The PG game was just so frustrating, man , up 3 to zip and we loose 6 to4! Hope coach K gets the boys to clean up the play. Hope Troock gets going soon.

Anonymous said...

What's the deal with Scott Eansor? Is he actually sick? His work ethic is missed.

Anonymous said...

Eansor has mono. He will be out for a bit longer.

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