The puck drops at 5:00pm tonight for Game 1 of the 2016 Stanley Cup Finals between the Pittsburgh Penguins and San Jose Sharks. For the Penguins, this is familiar territory, having won the Cup in 1991, 1992, and 2009. For the Sharks, this is uncharted territory. Since the team’s inception in 1991 as an NHL expansion team, San Jose has made it to the Conference finals four times (they lost to Calgary in 2003-2004, Chicago in 2009-2010, and Vancouver in 2010-2011).
When the two teams take the ice tonight, hockey fans across Western Washington will be among the millions tuning in. Seattle may not have an NHL team, but it does have two very strong development teams: the Everett Silvertips and Seattle Thunderbirds of the Western Hockey League. Players aged 16 - 20 battle for spots in the WHL and a number of other development leagues. A small percentage of those players will make it to the NHL, and an even smaller percentage will remain there.So, it’s pretty exciting to see not one, but two former T-Birds in the Finals.
Defenseman Brenden Dillon (2007-2011) joined the Sharks early in the 2014-2015 season, in a trade from the Dallas Stars. The 25 year old cracked Dallas’ lineup after making his mark with the Stars’ minor league affiliate. In his two seasons with San Jose, Brenden has proven to be a strong and effective defenseman, who has 4 goals and 11 assists to his name.
Left wing Patrick Marleau’s talent was evident in his early teens, and his two seasons with the T-Birds are among the most memorable in team history: 83 goals and 116 assists. In 1997, San Jose selected a 17 year old Patrick as the second pick overall in the NHL Entry Draft. While many teams would send a 17 year old back to their junior team to develop for another season or two, the Sharks kept him, and he began the 1997-1998 season before reaching his 18th birthday, and in his nearly two decades with the Sharks, Patrick has amassed a number of team and NHL records, as well as helping Canada’s hockey team win the gold medal in the 2010 and 2014 Winter Olympics.
Russ Farwell, longtime General Manager of the Seattle Thunderbirds (and one of the team’s owners), has seen nearly a dozen players hit the NHL ranks, but Dillon and Marleau are the first two alumni to make it to the Stanley Cup Finals.
“They’re both real good kids and good players here,” he said, in a phone call from Calgary, where he’s attending a camp for young players in the T-Birds’ system. “Dillon’s a little more recent, but it’s really hard not to pull for Pat Marleau to win a Stanley Cup. He’s such a classy, consistent guy and it would be really great to see him win.”
Farwell recounts Marleau’s early days in Seattle: “He stood out, but he was only 5’9” when he was drafted (at age 15 by the T-Birds). It was a real break for us. He was really a standout at Sask first (youth hockey in Saskatchewan). By the next year, at 16, he had grown to 6’2”, a really powerful explosive guy. We had a spring camp here (Calgary) and we were doing some testing. He did the leg press and they finally just told him to stop. The guy doing it for us said he’d done the Flames (NHL team) and Pat had gone by just about all of their guys (in leg strength) that year as a 16 year old.”
“I remember when the paper (Seattle Times) did an article on Pat his (draft) year, comparing him to Ken Griffey, Junior and what an elite athlete he was, and when that article came out, no one ever saw him again in Seattle, because he made San Jose that year. But, that was the one comparison where they got how special an athlete he was. That is the case. That’s the top guys; that’s the level they’re at. You see them now - (Mathew) Barzal* right now, he’s a world class guy. He’s still maturing, getting older and refining his game, but talent-wise, he’s right there with the top guys in the world.”
For those who are unfamiliar with the world of junior hockey, Farwell has this brief primer:
“Hockey’s so different than any other sport, in that these guys make such an early decision if they’re going to pursue it. It’s such a quick, early maturity pyramid for a hockey player. They move away at 14, even before they come to us a lot of times, but they are on to the careers, they draft at 17 and into their second contract by the time they’re 21. In any other sport, they’re considered really young at 21 years old.
“I just think how early they go after their careers and how well they all balance their draft year, the same year as their senior year in high school. It’s a different workload that those guys take on. If you’re a ball player and you’re in high school, you’re considered a really young, young guy at 19 and 20, where our guys are already ranked against everyone their age around the world. It’s actually frustrating at some times. A guy like (Jared) Hauf*, who’s been through the draft a couple times. They don’t even look at him because they think they’ve got them all determined and he’s still a pretty young guy. The other thing is how good these guys are, like (Shea) Theodore*. We’ve seen them grow up at 16 and by the time they’re 19, they’re world class guys.
The T-Birds are coming off one of the most exciting seasons in team history, winning the WHL’s western conference championship before falling to the Brandon Wheat Kings in the WHL finals.. They did it with scrappy players, a goaltender who stood tall in the net, and a “never say die” attitude.
The same description could apply to this season’s San Jose Sharks. All that remains is to see whether that scrappiness is enough to win the Stanley Cup.
Watch Game 1 of the NHL Stanley Cup Finals tonight (Monday, May 30) at 5:00pm on KING 5.
*Mathew Barzal - Seattle Thunderbirds center and New York Islanders prospect
*Jared Hauf - Seattle Thunderbirds defenseman and New York Rangers prospect
*Shea Theodore - former Seattle Thunderbirds defenseman and member of the Anaheim Ducks
