THUNDERBIRDS

5 storylines to ring in the T-Birds’ 2016-17 season

Sep 19, 2016, 2:59 PM

Brandon Schuldhaus will be expected to play a bigger role on the blue line this season. (T-Birds ph...

Brandon Schuldhaus will be expected to play a bigger role on the blue line this season. (T-Birds photo)

(T-Birds photo)

In preparation for Friday’s season-opening tilt against the Portland Winterhawks at the Moda Center, we look at five of the T-Birds’ biggest questions heading into the 2016-17 season.

Have the T-Birds answered their goaltending question? It’s become a pattern over the past few years that Seattle has sought to answer any goaltending questions by looking outside of the organization. Prior to the 2012-13 season, Seattle acquired Brandon Glover from the Calgary Hitmen. The year after, they found a hidden gem in 19-year-old Kamloops backup Taran Kozun at the trade deadline, who played in Seattle for a year and a half. Last year, they acquired Landon Bow at the deadline to shore up their biggest weakness.

Seattle has added another veteran goalie by acquiring Rylan Toth from the Red Deer Rebels. Up until just a few days ago, it appeared 19-year-old Logan Flodell, who had patiently waited for his chance to be the number one guy, was going to lead the T-Birds in net this year. Now, Flodell is in Saskatoon and Toth, who has put up impressive numbers in two seasons as the starter in Red Deer, will be counted on to help backstop Seattle to glory.

At this point, there’s no reason to think he isn’t up to the task. In those two seasons with Red Deer, he posted 54 wins to just 33 losses, had save percentages of .904 and .912, and goals-against averages of 2.84 and 2.67. Perhaps even more importantly, Toth has played in 14 WHL postseason contests and has Memorial Cup experience, as his Rebels were the host team last season. With such high expectations for Seattle this year, they felt uncomfortable entering the season with an inexperienced goaltender and saw an obvious chance to improve with Toth.

What will happen with Mathew Barzal? It’s the biggest question on the minds of anyone who pays attention to Seattle hockey and, perhaps, one of the biggest question marks around the entire league as a whole. Barzal was one of the WHL’s best players last year as an 18-year-old, and if he returns to Seattle this year, would likely challenge for an MVP award.

His return, however, is highly questionable at this point. Last year, he was one of the New York Islanders’ final cuts from their training camp and there’s no reason to think that he wouldn’t be again this year. Talent-wise, Barzal is ready, but it remains to be seen what kind of strength he added during his offseason training. Additionally, the Islanders are a team deep at center, which means Barzal faces stiff competition to crack the final roster.

Should Barzal find his way back to Seattle, he’d surely miss significant time due to various international tournaments and Islanders training camp, but that wouldn’t stop him from finishing near the top of the league in points scored. In just 58 games last season, he scored 88 points, tying him for 11th in the league. Of the 11 players tied or in front of him, nine played in more than 70 games. The other two were both a year older.

The bottom line: Seattle is an entirely different team with Barzal in the lineup, and his presence would open all kinds of doors for the rest of the roster.

Can a new-look group of forwards produce immediately? Aside from the potential departure of Barzal, gone from last season’s forward group are Ryan Gropp, Andreas Schumacher, Josh Uhrich and Nic Holowko.

Outside of Barzal and Gropp, the names aren’t huge, but each played an important role last season and will need to be replaced. Holowko was a versatile player who could line up on the wing for any of the team’s four lines. Uhrich was a gritty forward on a team in need of toughness. The team liked the production from Schumacher when he replaced Gustav Olhaver as Seattle’s second import. Gropp, of course, was one of the league’s top goal-scoring threats and is now playing professionally with the New York Rangers organization.

Potentially being added to the mix are Finnish import Sami Moilanen, rookies Wyatt Bear, Dillon Hamaliuk, Luke Ormsby, or Ian Briscoe, as well as the recently-acquired Layne Bensmiller. The only one with any real WHL experience to speak of is Bensmiller, who has played in 112 regular-season games with the Calgary Hitmen and Prince Albert Raiders. Moilanen is just 17 but has shown impressive offensive upside in training camp and the preseason.

Asking these new faces to come in and replace some of the league’s most prolific players is unreasonable, but Seattle will need contributions from whoever ends up making the team if they’re going to repeat last season’s success.

How will the defense be structured? Similar questions abound for the Thunderbirds on defense. With the departures top-pairing veterans Jerret Smith and Jared Hauf, Seattle has some big skates to fill. The assumption is that Ethan Bear and Turner Ottenbreit move up from the second pairing, where they played last season, into the top spots.

After those two, it’s a big question mark. Jarret Tyszka and Brandon Schuldhaus were the fifth and sixth defensemen for most of last season, so logically it makes sense that they’d move up to the second pairing. However, the team just went out and acquired 18-year-old Anthony Bishop from Saskatoon for Flodell and like his offensive upside. He had just two points in 40 games last year but has four points in five games this preseason. Bryan Allbee, 19, bounced around between defense, forward, and being a healthy scratch last year but looked like an entirely different player during training camp and the preseason.

Reece Harsch, who will be a 17-year-old rookie, looks like he’ll also make the team. So while the top pairing is seemingly apparent, how the other two defensive lines will be structured on a game-by-game basis is a big question at this point.

Is this team prepared for increased expectations? After the dark period Seattle went through a few years ago, each victory acted as a major win. Making the playoffs seemed more like a privilege than an expectation. Those days are in the past.

The Thunderbirds have improved each of the past four seasons, culminating in a WHL-Championship appearance last year. Now, anything less than contention will be seen as a major disappointment. Reeling off multiple wins in a row will be customary, while each loss will be dissected and over-analyzed in perpetuity.

The T-Birds haven’t had expectations like this in a long time — perhaps ever — but they’ll need to forget the added pressure and just remember to play hockey. With or without Barzal, this remains a very talented team with the pieces necessary to make a deep run once again.

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5 storylines to ring in the T-Birds’ 2016-17 season