Firebirds finding their groove? Stock rising as young players settling in, goalies healthy
The calendar has turned to January and that's good news for the Coachella Valley Firebirds.
They have started 2024 with arguably their two best wins of the year, a 6-1 victory and a 3-1 win on the road against the first-place Calgary Wranglers, and that seems to continue a burgeoning trend.
While the Firebirds were good every month during last year's remarkable debut season, they were particularly unbeatable in January. Last year's group went a sizzling 8-1-1 in January, and it was during that stretch when they alerted the American Hockey League that this was not simply a new team off to a surprisingly good start, but a team that had Calder Cup Finals chops.
This year's Firebirds could use a sizzling January. The Firebirds have played 29 games and are currently 17-10-2-0 on the season and tied for fifth place in the Pacific Division. A respectable record to be sure, but last year's team was 21-6-3-0 through its first 30 games and atop the Pacific Division. Remember 25 of those 30 games were played on the road.
While not having a home to start the season was the primary challenge for last year's group, the toughest hurdle for this year's team has been an almost constant player shuffling, as well as a youth movement that the team didn't have last year. Ten players have already played games for both the Firebirds and the Seattle Kraken this year, and the team is playing six rookies in the regular rotation.
Four of the team's top nine scorers are rookies: Logan Morrison (21 points), Shane Wright (18), Ville Ottavainen (13) and Ryan Winterton (11).
"This year we have a lot of youth on our team, that maybe we didn't have last year, and sometimes it takes a little time for them to get used to the pace of this league, get comfortable, gain some confidence and we're starting to see that now," said Troy Bodie, the vice president of hockey operations for the Firebirds. "You're seeing some players starting to figure each other out. So I'm hopeful that we'll see another strong January like we saw last year."
Bodie said the player movement with multiple players moving up and down from the Seattle Kraken "definitely can mess with the mojo a little bit," but is par for the course for an AHL team.
The numbers bear out that it's been tough to find the same offensive consistency as last year. The Firebirds have scored 27 fewer goals this year than they did last year at this point in the season (91 vs. 118). The highest-scoring players on the team are Max McCormick and Cameron Hughes with 24 points each. Last year at this time Andrew Poturalski led the team with 35 points and McCormick had 31.
Injuries at the goalie position with both Ales Stezka and Jack LaFontaine missing time already, along with Chris Driedger's ascension to the Kraken, have created another hurdle the team has had to leap this year.
Bodie feels like that turmoil in net is starting to calm down now. Stezka is back healthy and the clear No. 1 guy while Driedger is gone and he's been playing well. LaFontaine, when healthy, and emergency helper Cale Morris have both done well when called upon.
"For Alex Stezka to come over from the Czech Republic with a different ice surface and completely different group of people around him, it was a bit of an adjustment at first, but he seems to be finding his groove right now," Bodie said. "And LaFontaine and Cale Morris have played really in relief after Dreidger got called up. We've been very lucky to have those guys fill in for us as well."
A third factor that has come into play this year is that the Firebirds are the defending Western Conference champions, and teams are coming at them with their best effort. That wasn't the case at this point in the season last year. It's part of the explanation as to why the Firebirds are struggling at home at 5-7-2 on the year and 12-3 on the road.
"I fully believe teams are coming in and playing us harder this year, especially at home," Bodie said. "They don't want to come in here and get embarrassed. There is that target on your back and teams gear up a little more for us. But that's fine with, we very much welcome that challenge."
Despite all that, the Firebirds are not in a bad position. They are technically in sixth place as of Saturday morning, and the top seven teams in the division make the postseason. Since the calendar hit 2024 they've been playing their best hockey, and even though they are in sixth place teams are bunched up at the top. In fact, the Firebirds are closer to first place (only seven points behind) than they are to eighth place and out of the playoffs.
Bodie said he feels like the team has navigated the early part of the season pretty well all things considered and these next couple months he just wants to see the team play at its highest level more consistently, starting with this weekend's two home games against Abbotsford.
"Starting the new year with those two big wins in Calgary was a good morale booster," Bodie said. "I'd like us to be a little more consistent not just game in and game out, but period in and period out, shift in and shift out. Strive for that as the season moves on. That's what I think this next stretch will be about."
Shad Powers covers the Coachella Valley Firebirds for The Desert Sun and desertsun.com. Have a question about the team? Shoot him an e-mail at shad.powers@desertsun.com.
This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Surging Coachella Valley Firebirds confident in another January jolt
