We all know the long term injured players, Honey and Douglas.
Then when I show up to the rink last night, Yakubowski and Bear are not skating during warm ups.
Then you add in Lipsbergs being away at world juniors, and the bench is short.
Don't forget Holub left the team last week.
So your roster last week that contained 23 skaters is down to 17 for last night.
Then Barzal goes down with an injury 6 minutes into the 2nd period, and you are at 16 skaters.
Let's look at the fights / scrums with 5 minutes to go in the 2nd period. Seattle loses Hickman, Hauf, and Wardly for roughly 10 minutes (Hickman 7 minutes). So that left Seattle's bench with 13 skaters. That is not much at all. Just think if Portland didn't have 5 top players away.
So it looks like Seattle may limp into the holiday break (at least from a missing player situation).
Filling up the roster
Something to point out as well, is that Kolesar leaves to the U17's, from December 29th to January 4th, along with Bear and Barzal. So the roster will be losing one more skater.So do we try and bring a listed player in to help out? Would that player even get the ice time to make it worth it?
Lane Pederson is playing in Saskatoon and that might be a long distance for him to go. Plus, he is at the U17's at the same time, so doesnt really help much in the post holiday break.
Since Pederson probably doesnt fit the bill, let's get the crowd fired up. Lets get Jagger Williamson to come for a couple games. I am not sure if he signed with us yet, but if not, no better Xmas present for him.
Maybe Kaden Elder gets in a couple of his 5 games in before the end of the season. But he is playing in Wilcox Saskatchewan, which is also a little far away. He is playing for a Notre Dame team that usually goes to a major tournament over the holidays, so he might not be available.
Next up is Nolan Volcan. From Edmonton. He is signed, so maybe, possibly, who knows.
Bottom line, you might just see a couple new players over the next couple weeks.
34 comments :
I'm always excited to see the young guys get a taste, I would think it would help them coming into the next year.
Would they talk to Holub and see if he wants to get a week or two of game time in? I would think that would help the prospects of trading him if he was playing and showing other teams that he is in game shape and how he plays.
Hopefully they will get Honey back after the holiday and get some help by adding a skilled 19yr old back into the mix.
I don't know if they had any other 16 yr olds signed beside Pederson, but with the game limit can they be brought in for just a week or two?
If they are going to be down to 6 Dmen, can they get Fabbro to sign and get a couple of his 5 games in?
I would love to see Elder and Volcan on the ice.
Konowalchuk might have to go to his 19 yr olds and say I hope you all like 30 minutes of icetime for a couple of weeks.
I know it's useless to ask but does anyone have any updates on Barzal or Yak?
Saskatchewan isn't that far away. And the Birds can always drop them off in Alberta on the post-Christmas road trip.
And even with our team missing 5 players (6 after the Barzal injury) Portland fans had to use the fact they are missing players for the reason they lost....
As for Portland players I had to laugh at Leipsic lose it on a fan with about 30 seconds left. He really reminds me of a bratty kid. He's really good but when he doesn't get his way he has to cry about it.
Leta not forget that we had a chance to see the great potential US player that got lots of time yesterday, ending with a +2. I think his unexpect speed threwPortland off two draw two penalties with one causing a power play go ahead win. He had a nice deek move to the goal also. He reminds me of a bigger Eansor style of play. I feel this will be a turning point to help us throuigh this period.
Sorry for the writing. Typing from phone :-)
I don't care how many people Portland was missing, the result is two points in our column and 0 in theirs. It's not like they get a point for showing up and playing without 4 or 5 guys, just got to chalk it up to bad luck if you are on the losing side. Outside of the two games in Portland the T-birds have played them pretty tough this season, they might just have to admit the T-birds are a lot better this year than the couple of previous years.
Every time I think the Cheaterhawks have hit a new low...Branden Leipsic gets back on the ice.
For those that missed the hit...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tK0TBGf070
He came skating full speed from the other end of the ice, lead with his shoulder to his head and continued in an upward motion. The video is too grainy to tell if he left his feet though.
The link doesn't work. The one on the WHL board does.
The link does't work. The one on the WHL board does.
That was a bad looking hit. And Leipsick deserved the charging (it was textbook charging)
But man, you have to keep your head up on that play. Kolesar has control and has a clear view of the ice in front of him. No reason why Leipsick should of been able to drop him like that.
It is listed on the online scoresheet as a "checking to the head" major, not charging. That tells me they believe he targeted Kolesar's head.
Now don't get me wrong, I hope they will throw the book at him. I think you can justify a suspension on that play just with the intent to injure.
Wow, I have heard references to the Portland radio broadcasters being homers but the audio on the Youtube clip is unbelievable. Those two apologists should be ashamed of themselves. They said anything they could to put the blame for Leipsic's hit anywhere other than where it belonged. Its apparently either all Mitch Elliot's fault for hitting Leipsic earlier in the shift or Kolesar's fault for not expecting to be charged from 50 ft away or the Ref's fault for Leipsic being frustrated because they didn't call any of the penalties that Leipsic thinks he drew earlier in the game. It's true Kolesar's should have seen that coming but my goodness those two clowns embarrassed themselves after the hit. They couldn't start making excuses for that dirty little creep fast enough.
Link didn't work, but pasting the web address into the address bar worked just fine :)
Portland should be looking for new commentators with how those jokers reacted. Though reading some of the comments was awful. Must be Portland's version of the Tuesday night drunks posting the comments.
I hope Kolesar is ok. I'm guessing he is out a minimum of a week for concussion procedure.
I hope Lipstick gets to sit for a month or so. He is a dirty player, send a message to the little back stabber.
what about the crowd? you should of been embarrassed with a crowd under 4K on a Friday night with your top rival in town. Thought Seattle was a hockey town, but I guess Kent is not. Hey Tyler, any thoughts on low crowd? bad management, high prices, or bad experience?
For those curious he is a repeat offender
3 games under supplemental review on September 26th 2013 for a hit to the head,
5 games under supplemental discipline versus Tri-Cities on September 30,2011 for a charge.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVMOeDpTBMc
Not too worried about 4k on a Friday. Attendance has been pretty steady and this team was awful for 4 years. I don't think you're ever going to see consistent sellouts.
I'm still trying to figure out how wardley came away with a harsher penalty than lipstick earlier in the game. Anyone know what the league's position is on the temper tantrum he threw going off the ice or the jawing he was doing with our fan on Friday? It seems like the whl should be discouraging that type of behavior.
re attendance ; My theory is that Falwell cut the budget for promotions and moved the money to scouting. Too bad they can't do both(see Portland or Everett) On a related note , why are there no ads on the scoreboard any more between periods? Just endless loops of highlights. Maybe they need some new salespeople.
Leipsic has taken "cheapshots" during his WHL career. This, in my opinion, was one of the dirtiest. This is coming from a former Winterhawk season ticket holder. He clearly took a run at him (Kolesar. If a Portland/Seattle game gets out of hand, he might want to keep "his" head up.
Not that it has anything to do with the discussion at hand, but promotions are paid for by businesses to advertise, not by the Tbirds.
I brought up the attendance on the 710 blog (see on thread after 7-3 win in Spokane) and Andy Eide stated that the low attendance is a non story . I wonder if the potential NHL owners that are looking at Seattle look at the Seattle and Everett attendance figures for the WHL games? If you are a hockey fan from let's say the 520 bridge and south,then I would think those fans would go to the games? Is it NHL caliber, no, but it's hockey and entertaining. I do agree with the comments above they don't market much at all except for Facebook and email.
Unfortunately the major media in the Seattle market looks upon The T-birds and the WHL as a high school level sport (I had an editor with the Seattle Times confirm that viewpoint a few years ago). So unless the team is willing to over spend by thousands of dollars to advertise on Seattle TV radio and print (and never get enough of a dollar return on their investment), they'll never get the same publicity from those outlets as the Seahawks, Mariners, Huskies and Sounders. They would essentially have to pay the same price for ads as those major sports teams. No discount for being a junior hockey team. That same media however would treat the NHL as a major sport and would cover it daily. The T-birds are a very small fish in a big pond. Getting 3,500-4,000 attendance on average is actually pretty good.
The Times will pay a reporter to write a long story about Seattle U basketball with 1000 people in the building, yet the T BIrds could have a crowd of 4000 and you need a magnifying glass to find the story. Go Figure. The Tips advertise in the Times, why not the Birds?
Do I smell a conspiracy?
Seattle is definitely a better team than in years past, however, they still have dirty players. Elliot is a goon who likes to instigate attacks on the other team. The refs did a lot of bad calling on Saturday. If you weren't there don't think you know what happened. Leipsic hit that kid hard and it is very unfortunate that he got hurt. Did Leipsic aim for the head? He is the only one that will ever know. I have been a watching him play for three seasons now and I don't recall ever seeing him purposely hurt another player like that while at a home game. I could be wrong but so could all you Seattle fans.
I'm always willing to admit that I could be wrong but I'd take you to task on two issues here.
1) Elliot is most definitely not a good. He's a fighter and there is a huge difference. He's been suspended exactly one time for a bad hit and it was a Kneeing penalty. Not to mention if you go back and find the old post I wrote about it, I disagreed with the call (which is really neither here nor there). I think at best you're stretching to call Elliot a dirty player.
2) It really doesn't matter whether he aimed for the head or not or whether penalties were properly called during the game or not. Even if those things are true (and that's a big assumption) it doesn't change the fact that Leipsic conservatively went 25-50 feet on a straight line and made contact with the player's head. It doesn't even matter whether he led with his shoulder or not. If you check a player in the head you're going to get the book thrown at you and those are the facts.
Facts are different from opinions and my opinions about Leipsic as a player or Andy Kemper and Todd Vroom as broadcasters are separate from the incident itself.
You're certainly entitled to your opinion but I think you are focused on the wrong things if you're going to excuse a dirty hit for those other reasons.
That's like saying what Shawn Thornton did was ok because Brooks Orpik wouldn't fight him. You can call Brooks Orpik a pussy for not taking the fight but that doesn't mean that what Shawn Thornton did wasn't uncalled for and dirty.
@anon 10:41
Please keep rationalizing a bad, dirty play. If your defense is that "Seattle does it too" your really are short on arguments.
Apart from the fact that a kid got hurt ...it really is quite funny.
As Tyler said, lets not define Elliot as a "goon". Fact is that he was less suspended in his WHL carreer than Leipsic. Does that make Leipsic a goon?
Now I know that Port fans are going to say: "ah...the humanity of the non-calls against Leipsic....he just could not take it anymore.."
Well though, talented players get a beating and get non calls on every teams. Its not Portland specific.
It does show a lot about people's character when they defend a guy giving out a hit like that though.
Wow, one of the most vicious hits I've seen in years. In my opinion, Leipsic left his feet and made a straight line for Koelsar's head. I don't mind fighting and hard hits but this was "over the line".
Showare should be filled for every game it only seats 6,000 fans. Isn't there 6000 hockey fans in the greater Seattle area?
I'm honestly not trying to be snarky here but the simple answer is, no, there isn't 6000 people willing to pay to go watch junior hockey 36 times per year.
I'm not trying to be rude here, but what is your motivation for constantly begging more people to show up? Do you work for the team? I can understand the players preferring a bigger crowd for motivational purposes, but as a STH I prefer the games with the smallest crowds. Parking, concessions and bathroom breaks are that much more enjoyable. I don't need other fans to shape my experience. In fact, the less fans the better for me. I just wouldn't want so few people attending that the team had to relocate...something they aren't anywhere near having to do.
Hey guys I am not begging anyone to show up, I just think the birds have a great product and wonder why a small arena like the Sho isn't frequented more by sports fans and also hockey. We will just leave it at that . Thanks
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