Monday thoughts

And here I thought the changes Portland made were going to improve their defence. It's early days yet, but initial results are not very promising - in two weekend games, the Hawks gave up 107 shots. They were averaging 37 shots against per game prior to the trades. Those 107 shots only cost them eight goals, but that's a credit to goaltenders Jordan White and Kurtis Mucha, and probably not something they want to have to rely on every night.

That's an interesting stat that I don't have handy, but I'd like to see: how shots-against correlates to wins and losses. It stands to reason that in general, the more shots you give up, the less games you will win since you're giving your opponent more chances to score. But where's the tipping point, the shot total at which teams begin to lose more disproportionately? I would guess it's somewhere in the 32-35 shot range but that's just a guess. I have no stats on this but might try to rustle some up if I have time at some point this week.

Portland also made a blueline trade on the weekend, moving out 19 year old veteran defenceman Todd Panchyson to Seattle for a conditional draft pick. (Seattle fans can only dream that this is the Kevin Popp trade in reverse). Panchyson is a former 1st-round bantam pick but has played for Kootenay, Saskatoon, Lethbridge, Portland, and now Seattle in his WHL career. I would imagine the trade was necessitated by Portland being over the roster limit. Which, by my count, they still are since they're at 26 players. Check the WHL site roster....don't count Brad Ross (affiliate player) or Brock Cornish (out for the season) and you still get 26.

The Portland roster will shrink by one more player soon though, as scrappy '90 forward Tayler Jordan has requested a trade, which G.M. Ken Hodge has said the team will try to fulfill. Thanks to Gregg Drinnan's blog for that scoop. I would guess that Jordan's role is different under new coach Rich Kromm than it was last year with Mike Williamson.

Also from Gregg's blog, and on a sad note, former WHL defenceman Chris Chubb was killed last Sunday in a car accident. Here is the obituary and the Edmonton Journal blurb on the accident is here. Chubb played one season, for the Kootenay Ice, in 1999-00 - and a great season that was too since the Ice won the WHL title and played in the Memorial Cup. I remember him as a big guy who was a depth defenceman for the Ice but played almost every game and was a willing fighter. Reading the obituary, the very first comment in the guestbook is from Chubb's former coach, Ryan McGill.

Still with Kootenay, the Ice made a trade on the weekend, with Swift Current. The Ice pick up 17 year old Broncos list player Kris Foucault for a 2008 6th round bantam pick. Foucault failed to make the Broncos out of training camp, but that was probably due to number and not because he isn't good enough to play in the WHL. Foucault had been playing AAA midget in Calgary so far this season and has joined the Ice already.

Another new face in the league as well, as the Edmonton Oil Kings have picked up forward Jeff Lee from the NCAA's University of Alaska-Fairbanks. Big kid but he doesn't look like he has a history of scoring a lot of points, even in Jr A. We'll see what the Oil Kings see his role being in the WHL.....and on another Oil Kings note, they were involved in their 6th shootout of the season already on Saturday night. That's 6 shootouts in 22 games, or 27% of their games. They are a respectable 3-3 in the game-deciders. Runner-up in the most-shootouts category is Vancouver, who have been in four of them so far. Medicine Hat, Portland, Prince Albert, and Regina still haven't been in one this year.

Still no word on the hockey future of former WHL goalie David Reekie. He has been a free agent for several days now and I thought for sure some team in the OHL or QMJHL would have picked him up by now. But, still nothing. At this rate I'm starting to think we might see him heading to Jr A until there's a major junior team that's interested. The hard part might be finding a Jr A team willing to let him come play for them, knowing it's just a stopping-off point for him.