Andrew "The President" Johnson to Seattle

Seattle picks up Andrew Johnson from Moose Jaw for a 4th round bantam selection. That seems to me like a bit of a high price for an 18 year old who is -20 (worst on the Warriors). I'll get a more detailed report later.

This appears to be the only move that Seattle made today.

Trade Deadline Day

It's trade deadline day and the deadline is 2pm local time. Seattle dropped another game last night in Spokane by the score of 4-1.

I have a hard time thinking that any other teams are actually going to want our players right now but SOMETHING has to be done by Russ.

Please get me some players who actually give a shit about winning and actually care about working hard and aren't content to just go through the motions on a nightly basis.  Not every player is afflicted with this disease but a lot of the team is and it's time to start finding some players who want to bring it on a nightly basis.

Tbirds drop 11th Straight

I don't know how much in the way of poignant comments I have to make today after Seattle drops their 11th contest in a row last night, falling 4-3 to the Spokane Chiefs. I didn't think the team played terrible but I didn't think they played well either. I would echo the thoughts of some of the comments people have been making that guys like Lockhart need to step up their game and start playing better and showing some leadership to get the team pulled out of this funk they are in.

Want some really sobering stats courtesy of a friend of the blog?

Seattle's record in January the past several seasons.

2009-10 - 12 games (1-8-3-0)
2010-11 - 15 games (2-11-1-1)
2011-12 - 14 games (1-11-1-1)
2012-13 - 3 games (0-3-0-0)

Add that up and we have 44 games and a record of 4-33-5-2. 4 wins in 44 games and only 15 out of 88 possible points. WOW.  We all knew this but when you put it to paper... just staggering.

I'd love to know what Coach K means when he says that players aren't buying into the system. There are things that we can easily see as fans... things like lack of effort, lack of physical play, etc. but I just wonder if these are the same things Coach K is talking about or whether there are some "system" type things guys aren't doing.

In the first period, I counted exactly one meaningful hit and that was delivered by Hickman along the far boards at the south end. In the second, a meaningful hit caused a turnover and lead to the Elliot goal. It's hard to figure out why players don't understand what it takes to win.

Brandon Glover obviously had a bit of a tough night but I would hardly blame the loss on him.  The penalty and goal 19 seconds in were pretty much all his fault but he battled hard after that to keep Seattle in the game. The 2nd goal was one he'll want to have back but he also should be getting more help from his Defense there. The 3rd was deflected and the 4th was a giveaway. Let's not be too quick to blame the goaltender.

Seth Swenson had a nice game last night. Picked up an assist on the Troock goal where he dropped the puck off to Troock and went hard to the net to set a nice screen on Spokane goaltender Eric Williams. He wound up +2 for the night as well.

Nice little fight for Daniel Wray. He didn't wind up exchanging that many punches with Adam Smith but they charged at each other like gladiators. Respect.

I didn't see Shea Theodore's giveaway that lead to the 4th and game winning Spokane goal because I had to leave for my own game. I was told that it was a pretty bad decision. Theodore scored a goal earlier in the game so it wasn't as if the entire night was a complete loss but I still wonder whether he is battling an injury. Things just don't quite seem right with him.

At this point... the streak is more mental than anything else and the team just needs to find a way to break out and have a good game and get a win to stop the bleeding.

Kamloops hammers Seattle

Not as much time to update today as I had hoped for... so here are just some quick thoughts.

• Seattle actually got off to a decent start in the game last night but they weren't really generating much in the way of genuine scoring chances as much as they were just possessing the puck. The effort was decent but it wasn't translating into many scoring chances.  Hickman's goal on the PP was a good smart shot that came off an end board carom but I wouldn't even call that much of a scoring chance as much as it was just a smart play.
• After Freshman Danny Mumaugh gave up a couple of soft goals the team seemed to crumble. The mental state of the team appears to be in shambles right now and when things start to go poorly... things are falling apart. What should be happening... is the players pulling up their proverbial boot straps and getting back to work hitting people and flying around the ice. Instead, they appears to lose focus and energy and things just get worse. Mumaugh will have better days and the TBirds have to play for him instead of thinking he is going to do the job for them.
• Shea Theodore looks a little lost to me. Obviously, he was benched a couple of games ago down in Portland and his game just doesn't seem to be right. He was blown by for a goal last night falling for a fake shot and he was separated from the puck on several occasions in his own zone. Makes me wonder if he is hurt or something else is wrong.
• This team isn't THIS bad and some of that has to fall on Coach K. It isn't entirely his fault because coaches coach and players play. Coaches do have the ability to "push the right buttons" and right now he isn't doing it. This team is regressing instead of progressing.
• Don't look for Seattle to be trading for Alex Forsberg as rumors have it that Prince George is demanding a King's ransom to obtain him. I'm not sure how PG thinks they can bash a guy's work ethic and character and expect to get maximum value in return. IF indeed Forsberg has work ethic and character issues (and perhaps brother Jesse would know... since playing with his brother obviously didn't keep him in PG) and the Cougars are insisting on a crazy price tag... I'd just assume pass on him and find someone else. If they want Gropp... I'm game. If they want someone else... I'm passing.

Dare I say it... but if Seattle doesn't start to pull the nose up on this diving plane, we may be looking at another year outside of the playoffs. Something that seemed very improbable just a month ago.

Tips drop Tbirds

Seattle drops a big one to Everett last nigh 2-1. These losses are going to hurt down the stretch and I'm starting to lose a little bit of faith in this team's ability to get this done the rest of the way. Things are going to have turn around in a hurry if the Tbirds want to avoid another 2nd half tail spin.

Seattle came out firing on all cylinders to start the game last night and got an early lead courtesy of a nice feed by Connor Honey to Alexander Delnov who made a quick move to the backhand and beat Austin Lotz for the 1-0 lead. Taylor Green picked up the 2nd assist playing on that line and I thought he was decent again as a forward. Nothing spectacular, but I think he can give the team some useful minutes there. I noticed they also tried him on the PP for a short time as well.

Things seemed to fall apart after Seattle got the lead and Everett closed the period by closing the gap in shots. Momentum shifted for good after Everett tied the game and Seattle failed to capitalize on a 5 on 3 opportunity.

Quick side note: I want to once again point out to the faithful Tbird fans that yelling "shooooooooot" and thinking that simply "shooting" the puck on a PP actually works as an effective power play. It doesn't. I know this sounds quite simple but when you have more skaters on the ice than the other team, you should have the ability to obtain a GOOD shot... not just any old shot. Think back to all the times you've wanted players/teams to just shoot the puck only to have it blocked. Well... that's what the PK unit is trying to do. They are trying to clog the shooting lanes and keep shots from getting through to the goaltender. This is also why there tends to be so much room around the outside.  Seattle failed on the 5 on 3 chance... but it wasn't because they didn't "shoot", it was because they failed to get a good shot and Shea Theodore tried multiple times to hit the weak side post forward and wasn't able to get the puck there.

Bullet holes... because who doesn't like their quasi wisdom broken into neat little nuggets.

• Branden Troock was back and looked both dangerous and rusty at different times. It was good to see him back out there though and if he can stay healthy he will definitely have an impact on some games.
• Effort and Execution. If I were a coach, those would be the two things I'd be preaching to my team. We have to have effort first and execution second. Last night the TBirds get a B- for effort and an F for execution. There were stretches where I felt like Everett simply outworked Seattle but for the most part the effort was there. The execution was not. Too many shots that weren't one-timed on the PP and too many times where the shots came too late and Lotz had already had a chance to square up to the shot.
• Evan Wardley... can't tip shots around the net. Block it with the body or get out of the way. That first goal should have never happened.
• Alex Forsberg, brother of Jesse, has requested a trade out of PG and is going to play somewhere else until he gets a trade. His brother plays here, we have extra D, we have a hole in the 17 year old forward group. This just makes WAY too much sense.  Russ has probably already had a phone call with PG as I type this up.
• Officiating wasn't very good last night but it wasn't why the TBirds lost. Stop whining about the officials people... this is a development league for both players and officials. You aren't getting an NHL crew out there. Stop Whining. Officiating is a tough job, sometimes it is done well and sometimes it is done poorly... just like how hockey teams play.

I don't have the heart to travel to Everett tonight after that game but I will be watching from the comfy cozy confines of the Hunnex basement. Seattle badly, badly needs a win tonight.

Back to Work Tonight

Seattle is back from the Christmas Break and back in action tonight at the Showare Center against the rival Silvertips. Everett isn't quite as terrible as terrible as I thought they would be (or hoped) and they've played pretty frisky against some tough opponents lately.  They lost at Portland 4-2 and followed that up by losing 3-2 to Portland at home. Before that they won at Tri-City in the shootout. I hate calling games "must win" games this early in the season but these are pretty critical games for Seattle.

The schedule is so tough that you have to take advantage of these match-ups against "lesser" teams.

Here is what the schedule looks like coming up:

Home Everett
Away Everett
Away Portland
Away Kamloops
Home Spokane
Home Spokane
Away Spokane (yup 3 straight)
Home Victoria
Away Tri-City
Away Everett
Home Portland
Home Lethbridge

Not a lot of games in there where I would consider the Tbirds to be favorites and that isn't a knock on Seattle, it speaks to the strength of the division and the conference. They simply have to get points out of these Everett games.

Seattle will be without Roberts Lipsbergs who is playing for Team Latvia over in Russia. I'm led to believe that Alexander Delnov should be back and there is a rumor that Branden Troock was going to play but I cannot confirm that and quite honestly I'm not expecting him to play.

Ams Give Tbirds a Big Fat Lump of Coal

Tri-City sent the Tbirds home for the holidays (about 9 days) on a sour note, sending them to their 5th straight defeat and 3rd straight home loss.

I don't think Seattle played that poorly... but that won't generally garner you wins and it especially won't garner you wins in this tough U.S. Division. Here are some general thoughts I had.

• Generally speaking, I think Brandon Glover has played well for the Tbirds this season and his numbers would back that up to a certain extent. 3.78 GAA and .897 SV% on a team that isn't very good defensively are not horrible numbers. However, for Seattle to make the playoffs or have any hopes of making any kind of noise in the playoffs, they are going to need more out of Glover. The goal scored by McCue on the first shot of the game was a shot that he probably needs to stop and while I was in the car listening at the time... it sounded like the goal by Stromwall was a shot he should have stopped as well.  There probably isn't a more important member of the team than Glover for the rest of the season.
• Taylor Green played up front for the Tbirds last night, playing Center and looking pretty darn good doing it.  The last thing Seattle needs is more skaters up front but Green might have a shot to fill the void left behind by Tyler Alos (not in terms of stats but in terms of the number of forwards). He had an especially nice rush where he took on 3 American players and got off a decent scoring chance.
• Eric Comrie was excellent last night and I think you could easily make the case that he won the game for the Ams. He made several stellar saves and kept his team in the game despite being out-shot in the first period 14-7.
• The pass Rouse made to Hickman on the PP for Seattle's only goal... what a beauty.
• I thought the overall team defense was definitely better last night. I saw a lot of situations where 1 or 2 forwards were joining defenders in the neutral zone to break up offensive rushed by the Americans. That is the sort of thing that will keep shot totals down and help to improve the overall defense. Especially if Glover can get his A-game back on track.
• Let's not forget that the Tbirds were without Lipsbergs, Delnov and still without Troock last night. All team's go through injury issues and I don't think anyone should use that as an excuse... but those 3 might be your top 3 scorers in a normal year and they are definitely in your top 5.

I still believe this team is capable of being "decent" this year but they need to start figuring things out pretty quickly after the Holiday break if they want to avoid the 2nd half struggles that have plagued them the past several seasons and that effort will need to be led by Brandon Glover and the return of Branden Troock.

Last Game Before Break

Don't worry folks... I'm back. I've been on a little vacation for the past couple of weeks. This has been a really weird year for me. I feel like I missed more games for various reasons than any of the past 5 or 6 seasons. Certainly the most games I've had to miss since I started this blog. I even have to leave the game early tonight to play in my own game.  Hopefully, things will start to get back to normal here as I don't anticipate missing very many games for the rest of the season.

Seattle will get set to hit the holiday break by hosting the Tri-City Americans tonight on a "2 for Tuesday". The Birds have generally played pretty well lately with the exception of games against Portland and the meltdown over the weekend (and the Victoria game I suppose). This team is much improved over the versions we have seen in the past couple of seasons but you can see the growing pains of a team that hasn't done a whole lot of winning and the learning process associated with winning some of these close games.

They still rank 11th in the Massey Ratings and I would tend to agree with that ranking despite the .500 record.  Teams in the 1 and 2 spots are Portland and Spokane while Tri-City sits in the 6 hole.  Seattle's schedule is quite simply, very tough. Where they should have been able to make up some ground was out on their Eastern road swing.

Losing to Brandon (21st), Regina (19th) and Swift Current (14th) are games that will probably come back to haunt them in the standings when they are faced with all of these division games the rest of the way. That's the bad news. The good news is that they still have 2 meetings with Prince George and 3 meetings with Vancouver. Those are games that they really "must" win.  They also "must" win most of the games with Everett but Everett has played better lately and those rivalry games are never going to be "easy" to win.

Hopefully the players haven't already mentally packed things up for the holiday and they can come out and get a big win over the Yams tonight.

Final Note: Seattle traded Reid Fritzke to Swift Current for a conditional 5th round bantam selection.

Portland Gets Bitchslapped

I've said this a lot lately and it's really bugging me... but I've been super busy this past week and I have a credentialing exam tomorrow that has been absorbing a ton of my time. It is what it is... believe me when I say I haven't given up on writing more for the blog... it just isn't happening right now.

My quick take on what happened to Portland yesterday.

1. Portland fans crying about the punishment need to remember that no matter the level of severity... you got caught. Plain and simple. You cheated, you got caught, you deserve to be punished.
2. This may surprise many Tbirds fans but I actually do not believe the punishment fits the crime. Based on the information we have (more on that in a second) it appears to me as though the punishment is absurdly stiff. The violations that Portland claims to have broken seem minor in my opinion and the punishment doesn't appear to fit the crime. In addition, if the league is truly punishing them for things they believed happened but they can't generate proof of it... that's also unfair.
3. However. I firmly believe there is more to this story than we are being publicly told. There is simply no way the WHL would have punished Portland this severely based solely on the information the Winterhawks are providing. My belief (along with others) is that Portland's press release is an attempt at saving face and the league simply doesn't want the public (or the NCAA) to know about the severity of the rules that were broken. Obviously this is just an opinion... but it seems logical to most that the punishment is pretty egregious if they were truly only guilty of the infractions that have been released publicly.

Portland will likely appeal the ruling and will also likely have the penalties reduced but the punishment will still be crippling to the franchise over the next 8-10 years. The lesson here is pretty clear... the WHL has rules and whether you like the rules or not you WILL follow them or the punishment will be quite severe. End of Story.

Some quick Tbirds notes.

• The "DHL" line of Delnov-Honey-Lipsbergs has been outstanding lately but you didn't need me to tell you that.
• I think Jared Hauf has looked improved lately. Development was always kind of expected to be slow for the tall 17 year old and things appear to be getting better. He's still getting himself in trouble at times when he isn't moving his feet (or isn't moving them fast enough) but I feel a lot more comfortable with him on the ice than I have previously.
• The trade for Griffin Foulk was a bit of an odd one to me. Obviously the team feels he is a pretty good defender (and at this point I'm not going to argue) but I'm surprised the team felt compelled to go acquire another defender AND another 17 year old defender at that.  Injury? I know Wardley did not play on Tuesday and maybe there is something going on there.
• Branden Troock is listed as being out for another 1 week on the injury report. Let's hope it's only another week and Seattle can get him back on the ice. The Tbirds have performed pretty decently in his absence but it goes without saying that his ability and offense would give the team a boost. Tyler Alos is still listed as day-to-day.

Tough, tough 3 games this weekend starting with the Cheaterhawks on Friday night in Portland followed up by red hot Kelowna at home Saturday and first place Kamloops on Sunday.

US Division

Those of us that watch the US Division teams regularly pretty much already knew this but check out this latest screen cap from the Massey Ratings.

Three US Division teams in the top 5 and all 5 teams are among the top 15 teams in the league based (obviously) on statistics.  I always try to get people to understand that I DO actually sympathize and understand the point of view of the "frustrated" Tbird fan. Unfortunately, I think most of them believe that things happen and occur in a vaccum where the only thing that matters at the end of the game is wins and losses. While the bottom line (again obviously) is wins and losses... they actually occur with context and things like the Massey Ratings can help understand that context.

Seattle is "only" 10-12 but they've also played the 2nd toughest schedule in the league. It helps explain why they are 10-12 and not 15-9 like Prince Albert.

Central Scouting Rankings have been updated for November and Shea Theodore and Jared Hauf are ranked.  Theodore is no surprise... while Hauf might be a slight surprise. Seth Jones of Portland is still ranked number 1. Screen cap courtesy of TSN.