Make a move?

With the Scott Jackson injury confirmed as being at least 2 and possibly as long as 6 weeks (and I believe we are looking at closer to 6 than 2). The Tbirds now have only 5 healthy Defensemen on the active roster and the speculation has begun about what Seattle will do with the situation while Jackson recovers.

Brad Bakken was recently sent to Langley and could be recalled but my sources tell me that he asked to be sent to Langley to receive more playing time and I can't envision him being back in Seattle.

A few message board posters have suggested a few other young kids to get the big call up including Kaydon Trumbley who is currently playing for the Campbell River Storm of the VIJHL Junior B League. Trumbley is a '91 and would not be restricted in the number of games he could play. The other possible '91 would be Justin Krabben who is playing for the Red Deer Optimist Rebels in the AMHL, which is a "AAA" Midget League. I never saw mention of either one of these kids even being in the prospect camps and since Seattle doesn't make their list public I have no idea if they are even still on their list.

Another possibility would be to call up the Thunderbirds 1st round bantam pick from this past year, Erik Fleming who is currently playing for the UFA Bisons in the same AMHL that Justin Krabben plays in. The problem with calling up Fleming is that he would only be available for 5 games as he is a '92.

Yet another possibility is that Seattle just rolls with 5 D-men. This sounds a tad bit crazy, but it might not be so crazy when we analyze it.

Thomas Hickey probably logs anywhere from 25-30 minutes of ice time on any given night? You have 120 minutes of ice time for D-men and if you expand Hickey to 30 minutes for 3 or 4 weeks you have chewed up 25% of the minutes with one guy. 90 minutes split into 4 other guys is 22.5 minutes which should be something they could handle quite easily. I'm not really sure this is a good idea in the long run, but something that could be done. You could also rotate Holloway or O'Brien back to D for a shift or two when needed. I worry that over the course of a long season you put too many "miles" on Hickey and he tires towards the end of the season and playoffs.

We'll have to see how this plays out in the next few days and weeks.

I'll be back later with another post.