Weekend Thoughts...

I've been trying to figure out for a while this morning what I wanted to opine on about this weekend. I watched Saturday night's game on the computer but I was also watching the Huskies pull off a stunning last second victory at the same time... so I had kind of an eye on both games at the same time.

Birds came out flat in the first period... which is to be somewhat expected on the road against a quality opponent like Spokane and unfortunately, but for a weird bounce goal DeSerres looked pretty good in net.

Seattle played better in the 2nd but after getting a goal from Jacobs to cut the lead to 2-1 they allowed the game to get to 3-1 and it was more or less over from there.

The problem this team is going to have all season is if they don't get a lead early they are going to have a hard time scoring to catch up to teams.

Which brings me to last night...

Tbirds played some of their best hockey of the season in the first period last night against the Americans. The passing was as crisp as it has been for most of the season, they went hard to the net, they made nice cuts into lanes and finished at the net. Unfortunately, the arrival of offensive explosion lasted only one period as Muth took a penalty with 15 seconds left and Shinnimin made them pay with a great shot around a defender off the post and in to get the score to 4-1. The Seattle Times actually called Muth's penalty senseless... and in my opinion that just isn't fair. I thought it was a really soft call by the official. If Muth "held" him it was slight and momentary... something that happens dozens of times per game along the boards and never gets called. If the American player had clearly been trying to skate away and Muth impeded his effort to do so... I didn't see that as the case.

Either way the penalty resulted in a goal and the Ams went to the locker room clinging to life.... things would fall apart for Seattle in the 2nd.

With a mixture of questionable calls and poor discipline the Americans cashed in on 2 of 4 power play chances to cut the lead down to 1 goal and with their one power play chance in the 3rd period the Americans cashed in and sent the game to overtime where Seattle unexpectedly lost the shootout 2-0.

Some good and some bad here... the 1st period was in my opinion the best period they have played all season... the bad side is that when you have a team down 4-0 early in the game you have to step on their throats and finish the game. Whether that means not taking penalties and playing super tight defense or if that means just continuing to score. Either way you can't let a team get back in the game and Seattle did and it cost them a point.

Unfortunately, I think this is what you're going to get out of this team. As the second youngest team in the league you are going to see this team go through some growing pains learning and figuring out how to win and close these games out.

Sometimes I really wish that I would just ignore the message board but I have to respond to some of the things I have been reading.

One... this "fire the coach", "fire the GM", "fire the scouting director" argument is not only tired but its not even convincing. I'm not a guy who defends management people no matter what... I screamed for years that the Mariners had a horrible GM in Bill Bavasi and the only way that team would ever get better is with a change at the GM position. What evidence does anyone have to support firing Rob Sumner? ok wait... let me re-phrase that. What "rational" argument is there that making a change at Head Coach is going to make this team better. Will offensive players suddenly become more talented? Will players automatically stop being the 2nd youngest team in the league? Seattle isn't getting out-coached right now... they are being out-played and out-"talented" if you want to call it that. If we were able to quantify a team's talent level... let's call the Tbirds a 5 out of 10 (just for arguments sake). The merit of a coach should be judged on how above or below that talent level a coach can get a team to play.

Example... if the Tbirds are a 5 out of 10 and they win the division, you would say a coach was pretty successful. If they were an 8 or 9 out of 10 and they finish last you would say he probably failed. Does that seem fair? ok... I'll assume it is.

If we assume this crude method to be a decent way of judging a coach (though let's not pretend it is the ONLY way or the concrete way) what talent level would you place on the current team? and how might you try to convince me that Sumner is not getting the proper level of "results" out of that talent level.

Is Seattle an 8? so being 2-5-1 is a disappointment? Or is it more realistic to say they are probably a 4 or a 5 and they are 2-5-1 and that's probably about right....

Point is... Rob Sumner has been very good to me, he has granted my interview requests and he has given answers to my questions that in my opinion went above and beyond the formulaic responses you might usually get from other coaches or what you usually get from him in his post game responses.

But that doesn't stop me from being objective and honest about his "performance" is he the best coach in the league? Quite easily no... Don Hay probably is the answer there. Has he consistently been able to get results out of his teams that exceed their talent level? I'd honestly say no there too...

But has he lacked results on teams that were loaded in talent? No there also...
So does he deserve to be fired? Not even close...
Does defending this point of view make me dizzy? Yeah it does...

Honestly... I'm so tired of this argument. I would love to not talk about this anymore until it is something worth talking about.

Second point... last night a thread was started to bash our 20 year old players. Specifically this is a defense of Lindsay Nielsen. So Lindsay Nielsen isn't going to score 90 points this year. What do any of you have to base your opinion that he is a "bad leader" and is a "bad captain". Let's see here... the guy is the best penalty killer on the team, wins faceoffs, backchecks consistently more often and better than any other player on the team. Yeah... that sounds like a guy I don't want on my team... boooo hissss... let's get a scorer who only plays at one end of the ice. Come on people... just because your captain won't be your leading scorer doesn't make him a bad captain or a bad leader. Just because the guy can't and won't crush people into the boards and doesn't drop the gloves very often doesn't mean he can't lead by example and finish checks. I've seen Nielsen hand out a few pretty good hits already this season.

Finally... linking both my Nielsen point and my Sumner rant together. Team success is based on the sum of the parts and not just the parts themselves. Just because you have a couple of drafted players doesn't mean you should win the Cup each year... and on the flip side... just because you don't score 100 points a season doesn't mean you can't still be a good hockey player and can't lead by example and help a team win. This team isn't losing because of Rob Sumner or Lindsay Nielsen or Prab Rai. This team is losing because collectively they aren't playing well enough. Fans tend to be quick to play the blame game but results are almost never based on one player or one thing... just like wins are rarely based on one player or one thing.

Relax Tbird fans... is this probably going to be a long year? Yeah... probably is. Are we probably going to miss the playoffs? Real chance that is true. That doesn't mean you should let the negatives consume you and block you from also seeing the positives when they happen.... like Parker netting two really nice goals last night on a snipe and a dangle or Alos getting his first goal, on the PP... or Muth setting up the first goal with a slick cut to the middle from the point with a nice feed from Sena. Winning is always more fun than losing... but anyone thinking this team was getting to 100 points this season was probably not being realistic.