Well... I guess a win is a win...

Seattle defeats Chilliwack last night 2-0 in the last ever game at Key Arena. I don't know about you guys but I didn't feel particularly emotional about last night being the last game at the Key. It has always been a bad place to watch a game, the concessions suck and have been understaffed in the past couple of years, the boards and glass are terrible, the benches are bad and small, and the ice surface sucks.... so quite frankly I couldn't be happier to get out of that place and into a home we can call our own and boy is it going to be exciting.

I'm not very fond of Key Arena... and I wasn't very fond of the game the Tbirds played last night either. Yes... it is a win and we have to be happy about a win after the effort in the past two games. It is certainly a lot better than losing to a Chilliwack team, at home, who is behind you in the conference standings. Seattle started really slow again and only through the effort of Jake DeSerres, who turned aside 10 early shots, was Seattle able to go into the first break at 0-0. Tbirds were out shot 10-5 and outplayed for the better part of the first period and could not convert or get many shots through on two Power Plays in the first.

Seattle finally broke through in the 2nd period thanks to a nice effort from Lindsay Nielsen and the Tbirds scored for the first time in 155 minutes (all on home ice) to give them a 1-0 lead. Boyer worked hard along the boards to free up Nielsen for the rush to the net.

Nielsen then essentially sealed the game with his 2nd of the night on a nifty shot fake and finish around hard luck loser Mark Friesen. Friesen actually sprawled this his goal paddle and got a piece of the puck only to see it deflect into the net, giving the Tbirds a 2-0 lead.

Seattle got better as the game went along and finished the night with 28 shots to the Bruins 25 shots.

DeSerres picks up the shutout and deserved it... I thought he played a very solid game and made several outstanding saves. While the Bruins were able to ring three shots off the posts during the course of the game... it felt like something had finally gone right for DeSerres who played well all night and has seen too many games this year slip away from him on poor play or bad luck or both. It was nice to see DeSerres play well AND get a nice chuck of good fortune to pick up the shutout which is his first of the season.

The media gave DeSerres the 2nd start and Nielsen the 1st... but I would have flopped those and given DeSerres the nod with Nielsen the 2nd and Boyer the 3rd with some honorable mentions to Chris Cloud and Jonathan Parker who I thought also played a solid game and nearly scored on a couple of chances.

Seattle is in action tonight in the annual trip to Portland on New Years Eve. A special treat for Tbirds fans tonight with the game being shown on Fox Sports Northwest... which is channel 30 for most if not everyone here in the area.

Remember that the game tonight has a special 5pm start time as well.