Well that’s a nice way to go into the holiday break, and I don’t just mean the win Saturday night. I mean with the way the T-Birds played both games this weekend in Spokane. Very good effort both nights, although they probably played a little better Friday night in the loss then they did Saturday in the win. 

 

How often do Drayson Bowman, Mitch Wahl and Tyler Johnson get shut down in back-to-back games? That’s what Seattle did to that high scoring trio of Chiefs players with only Wahl picking up an assist on the Chiefs power-play goal Saturday.  A lot of the credit goes to T-Bird defensemen Stefan Warg and Brad Haber. Head coach Rob Sumner matched those two against the Bowman-Wahl-Justin McRae line as much as possible. But don’t leave out forwards such as Lindsay Nielsen who chipped in with a strong back check.

 

Spokane was credited with 57 shots on goal in the two games yet mustered only two goals. That’s great goaltending by Jacob DeSerres and Calvin Pickard but also solid team defense. Good to see the young defensemen step up with Thomas Hickey away from the team. Let’s hope they bring that same effort back with them after the break because Hickey will still be away until early January.   

 

Let’s also hope leading scorer Prab Rai heals up and is back on the ice after Christmas since number two scorer Jim O’Brien will also be gone when the ‘Birds return. Here’s to DeSerres picking up where he left off in the game Friday when he had such a stellar effort against the Chiefs since Pickard will be away at the U-17 tournament. 

 

The third goal Saturday night was huge for Seattle as they clung to a one-goal lead under heavy pressure from the Chiefs. That goal, scored by Jeremy Schappert, doesn’t happen without the tenacity and grit of fourth liners Luke Lockhart and Chance Lund. 

 

The T-Birds won’t see the inside of their team bus much the second half of the season. Just 10 road games left and with a New Year’s Eve battle in Portland only nine of those come after December. The club uses a shuttle to Everett games so that’s only eight games where the bus will be needed. In addition, only one overnight trip and that’s to Kelowna in early January. That means they will see very little of team bus driver Eli Johnson from now until mid-March. So kudos to Eli for getting the team back from Spokane to Kent under less than ideal weather conditions the entire way. He still did it in five hours despite getting through the Columbia River Gorge at a crawl thanks to near zero visibility. Still, any time saved was lost as the players spent 20 minutes scraping ice and snow from their vehicles. Once again I’m surprised that so many guys from the Canadian prairies don’t have an ice scraper or snow brush in their cars. I’m from Tacoma and I carry both. 

 

Easy to pick out disappointments when you finish three games under .500 the first half of the season, the biggest of which was the team’s slow start, but let’s concentrate on the pleasant surprises. They start with Calvin Pickard. Ten wins, a shutout and one Goalie of the Week honor in the first half of his rookie campaign.    Others include the play of Luke Lockhart, the signing of Colin Jacobs and three wins in four games against the defending WHL and Memorial Cup Champions Chiefs, including two on the road. Seattle has already surpassed its win total against Spokane from last season when they finished 2-7. 

 

Have a Merry Christmas, say happy Hanukah to T-Birds equipment manager Jason Berger should you see him (the eight days of Hanukah begin December 22^nd), put a couple of T-Birds tickets under the tree and we’ll see you December 27^th at KeyArena when the T-Birds return to the ice against Portland.

 

Saturday, December 13
The first of these two back-to-back games in Spokane was much like those games on the eastern swing that the T-Birds ended up losing; they played well and in most cases were the better team but didn’t get rewarded for their effort. Just too many of those type games in the first half of the season. Maybe that will all balance out in the second half when the team plays the majority of its games on home ice. Just amazing that less than half of the season will have been played after Saturday’s game and Seattle will have already played 26 of their 36 road games. 

 

Maybe Jacob DeSerres needs to play against Spokane more. In three games (185 minutes) Jake is 2-1 and has allowed just five goals. He actually allowed fewer goals in the loss (1) then he did in his two wins (2 goals both times).

 

Nice job by Seattle’s five defensemen Friday night. With Thomas Hickey having departed for World Juniors, they collectively stepped up and played smart hockey. I can only recall maybe one or two odd man rushes by the Chiefs last night. They were very good at getting pucks out from the front of the Seattle net. Erik Fleming continues to improve and after a slow start to the season, Brenden Dillon is playing the way I expected he would this season after a solid rookie campaign. He was very physical along the boards and behind the Seattle net. The unsung hero though may be Brad Haber who is doing a good job of playing within himself and not trying to do too much. 

 

Spokane’s Jared Cowan may be sending a message to those who chose the invitees to Canada’s World Junior team pre-tournament camp. Cowan was Spokane’s best player last night and got the game’s only goal. 

 

Weird note from Seattle’s last three games as the T-Birds have gone up against the WHL’s number one, two and three power play teams (Calgary, Vancouver and Spokane) in successive order. Just another reminder of how important specials teams are to a team’s success. 

 

After Saturday’s game the T-Birds will next see Spokane December 28^th when the Chiefs make their final appearance at KeyArena. Spokane will be missing seven players that night with six away at World Juniors and one player gone to the U-17 tournament. 

 

Welcome back to the lineup Lindsay Nielsen, who missed the past three weeks after being hurt in the final game of the eastern trip. As he did at the beginning of the season Nielsen will wear the “C” in the absence of team captain Thomas Hickey.

 

Oh, if you’re wondering, assistant coach Turner Stevenson’s old cell phone is still entombed on the team bus.

 

Well, what started out with much optimism, fizzled in the second period for the T-Birds Wednesday night in Vancouver. That was a very good first period against the Giants. It was even better than a very good first period they had last Friday against the Americans in Kennewick and even better than the well played first period Sunday at home versus Calgary. Put those three first periods together and you have one heck of a game against arguably the league’s three best teams. Unfortunately, that is not how it works.   

 

It is becoming more evident with each passing game how much the T-Birds miss both Prab Rai and Lindsay Nielsen in their lineup. Of course, what team wouldn’t miss their leading scorer and probably there best two-way forward? Nielsen hopes to play this weekend against the Chiefs in Spokane. 

 

Oh, what a game it could have been for Chris Cloud. I think he was determined to have a big game against his former team (and he did contribute a nice assist) but may have been pressing too hard to make that happen and as a result missed some glorious scoring chances. Or maybe he is just snake bit right now because he also kissed one off the post Sunday against the Hitmen. 

 

Oh, what a game it was for Jeremy Boyer. It may have been his best game as a T-Bird. He was strong at both ends of the ice. He was strong on face offs and he was good on special teams. He just missed a hat trick when he was denied on a late, short-handed breakaway in the third period. There were lots of NHL scouts in the building and they had to take notice of Boyer’s performance. Now Boysie, let’s see that every game!

 

On the post game show, T-Birds head coach Rob Sumner also praised the play of team captain Thomas Hickey, and he’s right, Hickey was one of the best players on the ice. You just get so used to expecting that from Hickey every night, and his game is so easy to take for granted, that you forget that along with a boatload of natural talent it’s also a mountain of hard work from him every contest. 

 

Yes, Vancouver’s Evander Kane is scary good. Like Hickey, his game looks so effortless on the ice. But he’s like the duck on the pond. On the surface he looks to be gliding along but underneath the water he’s moving in overdrive. 

 

Speaking of scary, T-Bird defenseman Sena Acolatse took one shift in the first period as a forward and looked like a natural doing it. He was throwing the body around, controlling the puck and skating well. Like Boyer the T-Birds are looking for more consistency from Sena.  

 

After seeing both Vancouver and Calgary in back-to-back games against the T-Birds, I stand by my statement earlier this week that Vancouver is the better team, although I might give Calgary’s defensive corps a slight edge. I also think Vancouver’s Jonathan Blum had an off night against the ‘Birds because he made some glaring mistakes with the puck. 

 

Too bad Devon LeBlanc lost a goal because none of the folks who matter, you know, the ref, the linesman and the goal judge, could see what everyone else did, that his shot crossed the goal line in the first period Wednesday night. Not sure if it would have made a difference in the end but a 3-0 lead on the road against Vancouver would have given Seattle a wonderful chance to come away with points in that building. You have to believe when all three Seattle forwards, standing at different locations around the net, watching the puck and not each other, raise their arms in unison to celebrate, that it was indeed a goal.

 

Now that the opening date is set for January 3^rd at the ShoWare Center in Kent, how about getting a big crowd out for the final T-Birds game ever at KeyArena. Be a part of history when the T-Birds host Chilliwack December 30^th. Maybe it was a good thing the Calgary game last Sunday wasn’t the last game at the Key. It was hard to promote that game as such with the uncertainty of the ShoWare Center’s opening. Now that we know for sure that it will be the Chilliwack game, let’s send the team out of Seattle proper the right way. Like the song says: Should old acquaintance be forgot, and never brought to mind?
Should old acquaintance be forgot, and auld lang syne?

 

Monday, December 8
Inconsistent; that’s the word I’d used to best describe the T-Birds play over the just completed three day weekend. They had good first periods in Kennewick Friday and at the Key Sunday night but couldn’t follow up with a strong second period in either game. They didn’t play poorly; just not up to the standard they set in November when they went 8-3-1-1. Case in point; after out shooting every opponent last month, Seattle was outshot in each game this past weekend. Of course they were bound to suffer in that category with their leading scorer, Prab Rai, sidelined with injury and Lindsay Nielsen’s absence doesn’t help either. 

 

I’m not sure of the timetable for a return of Steve Chaffin who got dinged up against Tri-City. I know Chaffin’s preference is to be a defenseman but the more I see him up on a forward line, the more I like it. I think he has more of a chance to use his size and be physical. 

 

I’m surprised we don’t see more “own goals” of the variety we say in the first period against Calgary when Jeremy Schappert shot the puck out from behind his own goal only to have it deflect into the net off Calvin Pickard. How many times in a game will you see a defenseman make that same play? Hopefully that was just a one time fluke. 

 

I’ve now seen both the top team in the Western Conference (Vancouver) and the top team in the Eastern Conference (Calgary) and based on just one game against each, I give Vancouver a decided advantage. The Giants play a more physical style that can wear you down. Of course there are lots of mitigating circumstances; Seattle hasn’t played Vancouver since early October and they caught Calgary on the end of a three-games-in-three-nights weekend. I tend to excuse that since Seattle played the Giants when the T-Birds were at full strength and when they played the Hitmen the T-Birds were missing two top players and were also at the end of a three-in-three stretch.    I guess we’ll get a better idea Wednesday night when the ‘Birds travel up to face Vancouver for a second time.

 

If you don’t think team sports are a game of inches just look at Calgary’s first goal Sunday that the T-Birds deflected into their own net and the just missed goal by Seattle at the end of the first period when Chris Cloud rang one off the post as time was running out. The puck moves an inch to the right on both those and Seattle is leading, 2-0, after the first period. But, as Maxwell Smart might say, “I missed it by that much.”

 

We have seen the future and it appears bright. I was not expecting 15-year-old Colin Jacobs to jump onto the ice this past weekend and put up 2-3 goals. What I was looking for was to see how nervous he might play in his first WHL games. I saw none of that. He looked poised, used his size to his advantage along the boards and when he had the opportunity he did not hesitate to shoot the puck.

 

Nearing the midway point of the season I also like to see how comfortable the 16 year-olds are with over 30 games under their belt and I don’t think you can complain about the improvement and progress in the games of any of them. Obviously Pickard has been nothing but solid in goal, Luke Lockhart has been good all season (how is it he’s not going to the U-17 tournament?) and Chance Lund’s play has really caught my eye lately. To top it off Erik Fleming picked up his first point of the season over the weekend.

 

With the international tournaments coming up and four T-Birds slated to miss some league games so they can participate, no word on whether we’ll see any of the signed 15 year-olds (other than Jacobs) come up for a game or two. If I had the power to bring one player in, I’d like to see Connor Sanvido. He really stood out in camp. 

 

Don’t forget to watch the T-Birds website either Wednesday or early Thursday for the announcement on when the first game at the ShoWare Center will be played.

 

Wednesday, December 3
Congratulations to Thomas Hickey, invited to Canada’s World Junior tryout camp. It was a bit of a formality considering he was on the gold medal winning team last year.   I think it’s a safe bet to assume he’ll get through the selection process and be representing Canada again. In fact, after wearing the “C” for Team WHL in the recent ADT Canada/Russia Challenge series, there’s a good chance he’ll be wearing a letter for Canada in Ottawa since he is one of only four players returning from last year’s squad.

 

With the tryout camp getting underway December 11^th, Hickey will most likely miss a total of 12 T-Birds games. He won’t be the lone T-Bird participating at World Juniors. Hockey USA has tapped Hickey’s teammate Jim O’Brien for the U.S. team. It should be an interesting tournament for O’Brien since it takes place in Ottawa and he was a 2007 first round pick by the NHL’s Ottawa Senators.

 

In fact, O’Brien is one of five WHL players who will don the red, white and blue for Team USA. The others are Vancouver defenseman Jonathon Blum (his second year on the U.S. team) and a trio of Spokane Chiefs; Drayson Bowman, Mitch Wahl and Tyler Johnson. Three other members of the U.S. squad (including both goalies) are currently playing in the Ontario Hockey League and one is with the USHL’s Omaha Lancers. That’s nine players, nearly half the roster, who come out of the junior ranks rather than college. 

 

I think with the large number of American players (especially those from the West Coast) opting to play in the CHL, Hockey USA may have to put politics aside and opt for more players from the Junior ranks in the future. The recent signings of Shane McColgan (Kelowna) and Colin Jacobs (Seattle) to WHL contracts may have already swayed them in that direction. Of course, that is a two way street. With Hockey USA more willing to add CHL players to the World Junior roster, more top end players may opt for the CHL route over college.

 

Any reason why Colin Long, the Californian currently playing in Kelowna, didn’t get an invite from Hockey USA? After nearly winning the WHL scoring title last year, he’s right back near the top again this season, fifth overall, with 16g, 24a and 40 pts. Perhaps Hockey USA needs to copy Canada and have a pre-World Juniors Tournament tryout camp.

 

Sure, there is a down side to losing players of the caliber of Hickey and O’Brien for 2-3 weeks, but that’s been part of the process for years. Other players will need to step it up to fill the void.   Remember, Colin Jacobs is slated to join the team for a few games this month and while not trying to put pressure on the 15-year-old Texan, anything he contributes will help the cause. 

 

The real disappointment is the fact both players will most likely miss the first ever game at the ShoWare Center; especially Hickey since he’s the team captain.   I think Hickey is willing to forego that piece of history for a chance at a second gold medal.