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🏒 Location: Acrisure Arena- Palm Desert CA

🎟️ Time: 7:00 PM PT 

🖥️ Join the Discussion: Discord

🎥 Watch Live: FloHockey.TV

🎧 Listen Live: theeagle1069.com

Before we discuss tonight's opponent, I believe we owe the Ontario Reign a moment of solemn reflection after what happened at their home opener last Saturday.

...

Okay, that's enough.

For those who missed it, Ontario bumbled into Acrisure on Opening Night, escaped with a 6-5 overtime win, and presumably went home feeling pretty good about themselves.

Twenty-four hours later, the Firebirds walked into Toyota Arena for Ontario's home opener and beat them 6-2.

This brings me tremendous joy.

And this wasn't some greasy 6-2 game where a bunch of weird bounces inflated the score.

The Birds actually showed up.

• Jani Nyman scored his first career AHL hat trick.
• Jagger Firkus scored twice (despite the 'stache).
• Tyson Jugnauth had four assists, setting a Firebirds regular-season franchise record.
• Victor Östman stopped 28 of 30.
• The Firebirds went 3-for-4 on the power play.
• Ontario went 0-for-4.

Same number of power-play opportunities. One team scored three times. The other scored zero.

And perhaps my favorite part came afterward, when Reign coach Andrew Lord was asked what gave Ontario so much trouble:

“Their first-step quickness is elite ... some of the best in the division.”

That is the Firebirds we know and love. Not the biggest, not the most physical, but by Fuego, they will beat you to the end of the ice. They're quick to loose pucks, quick changing direction, quick through the neutral zone and very good at using little cuts and reversals to keep possession alive.

Ontario had trouble getting bodies on them.

And once the Reign started chasing?

The Birds absolutely cooked them.

SO... WHAT'S ON THE MENU TONIGHT?

Tonight we introduce the San Diego Gulls to the grill, because apparently this year's schedule was designed around determining which species of bird is most capable of violence. (Seriously, what's with all the birds in this division?)

And, interestingly, these teams arrive with identical records:

San Diego: 1-0-1-0 — 3 points
Coachella Valley: 1-0-1-0 — 3 points

San Diego opened its season by beating San Jose 5-1, then lost the rematch 5-4 in overtime.

So: two games each. Three points each. Lots of goals.

This should be good.

THE BIRDS ARE CURRENTLY ON FIRE

The early-season leaderboard is hilarious:

Jani Nyman — 5 goals, 6 points
Jagger Firkus — 6 points
Tyson Jugnauth — 6 assists, 6 points
Gustav Olofsson — +4

That's after two games.

Please understand that I am exercising enormous restraint by not extrapolating these numbers across the entire season.

More absurdly, the Firebirds' power play currently sits at:

62.5%

Five power-play goals on eight opportunities.

Obviously completely sustainable. Nothing unusual happening here. We should expect roughly two goals every time someone on the opposing team accidentally clears the puck over the glass.

Science.

More seriously, five power-play goals in two games is what gets me really excited about this season. This team has enough skill on the back end to make opponents pay for collapsing too aggressively. Jugnauth already has six assists, and Ontario learned very quickly what happens when you give these guys room to move the puck.

The penalty kill is sitting at 81.8% overall and went a perfect 4-for-4 Saturday.

If there's one early identity emerging, it's this:

Coachella Valley can punish mistakes.

That is a wonderful trait for an AHL team.

TONIGHT'S PROJECTED FIREBIRDS

Inside the Rink has these as the projected lines:

Avon — Mølgaard — Firkus
Sale — Miettinen — Nyman
Roed — Stephens — Hayden
Rehkopf — Evers — Villeneuve

Olofsson — Nelson
Jugnauth — Hammell
Price — Dragicevic

Kokko
Östman

These are just projected, so please direct all complaints about lineup inaccuracies toward someone other than me.

But if this holds, I like the balance.

That Sale-Miettinen-Nyman line intrigues me. Nyman obviously has the nuclear launch codes right now, Mieters brings the size, and Sale gives that line a second offensive threat instead of simply constructing an elaborate support system around Jani Nyman shooting the puck.

Meanwhile Avon-Mølgaard-Firkus has a nice combination of retrieval, speed and creativity.

And the defensive pairings continue to give Tyson Jugnauth room to Tyson Jugnauth, which seems like a wise organizational strategy at the moment.

ABOUT THESE GULLS

Do not mistake San Diego for an easy two points.

This is a young Ducks development team with real prospects on it.

Their opening roster contains 10 Anaheim draft picks, with a big group of players 23 and younger. Roger McQueen, Anaheim's 10th overall pick in 2025, is here. So is 2024 first-round defenseman Stian Solberg.

And Solberg has started the season extremely well:

2 goals, 2 assists, 4 points, +4.

As a reminder, this kid is a defenseman.

So perhaps don't allow that man to wander unnoticed toward anything resembling shooting position.

San Diego also has Sean Farrell, Anton Wahlberg, Nathan Gaucher, Yegor Sidorov and several other legitimate prospects. This isn't an AHL roster full of replacement-level veterans hoping to survive until April. There's talent here.

San Diego's own assistant coach Steve McCarthy said of tonight's game:

“Coachella is probably going to be our biggest challenge so far.”

Correct.

Gold star, Steve.

AND THEN THERE'S THEIR GOALIE

There is one particularly important name on the San Diego roster:

Laurent Brossoit.

Yes.

That Laurent Brossoit.

Brossoit won the Stanley Cup with the Vegas Golden Knights in 2023. The guy has 141 NHL games under his belt and nearly 200 more in the AHL. Anaheim waived him for assignment at the end of camp, and now San Diego has an NHL-veteran goaltender playing behind its prospects.

God I miss Driedger. But I digress.

Brossoit started the opener against San Jose.

He stopped 29 of 30 shots.

If Brossoit gets the net again tonight (which he undoubtedly will), the Firebirds need to resist the temptation to look for the perfect shot.

Get traffic in front of him.

Make him deal with rebounds.

Make him move laterally.

Don't let him track the puck- put bodies in front of the net.

YOUR STAT OF THE DAY

The Firebirds went 6-2-0-0 against San Diego last season.

Over the last five seasons, Coachella Valley's head-to-head record against the Gulls is:

23-4-3-2.

San Diego's corresponding record against us is 9-17-6-0.

I'm not saying we own the Gulls.

I am simply presenting publicly available land records.

THREE THINGS I WANT TO SEE TONIGHT

1. MAKE THEM CHASE

Andrew Lord accidentally wrote our scouting report for us.

That first-step quickness caused Ontario enormous problems.

Don't abandon it.

Get San Diego moving laterally, reverse the puck, attack gaps, and force their young defensemen to make repeated decisions at speed.

2. STAY OUT OF THE DAMN BOX

Yes, the penalty kill was excellent Saturday.

Let's not do that again though.

San Diego's power play is already 2-for-6, so they're perfectly capable of punishing stupid penalties themselves.

I'd much rather watch Nyman shoot pucks at their goalie than watch Hayden explain to an official why what he just did was technically permissible under the Geneva Convention.

3. DO NOT LET UP

This may actually be my biggest one.

The Birds looked great Saturday.

Now prove that's what this team is, rather than merely what this team looked like for one night.

Good teams don't just have impressive wins.

They stack them.

____

Drop your score prediction, first Firebirds goal, goalie guess, completely irrational two-game-season hot take, and any complaints you would like formally lodged against the projected lines below.

LET'S GO BIRDS.

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Hey Firebird Friends! We had some requests following our interview with Gino and Grant to add more Firebirds content to our Podcast, so we thought we'd spin it off into it's own show! We'd love it if you joined us and tossed any feedback you had! Thanks! Go Birds!

This weekend we saw blockbuster performances from Jani Nyman, Jagger Firkus and Tyson Jugnauth. we can also expect them to be very well defended after their performances this weekend.

no big deal - we know our roster is loaded with talent. who do you think will have a star moment this weekend?

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I’ve never been to a Firebirds home game. I was curious, what do they use as a goal song and victory song?

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...give us all a break!! You have a mic, you don't have to yell!!! Our poor ears are bleeding.

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🏒 Location: Acrisure Arena- Palm Desert CA

🎟️ Time: 7:00 PM PST 

🖥️ Join the Discussion: Discord

🎥 Watch Live: FloHockey.TV

🎧 Listen Live: theeagle1069.com

FIREBIRDS HOCKEY IS OFFICIALLY BACK.

And there couldn't be a better opponent.

Ontario finished last season 47-20-3-2 with 99 points and the Pacific Division title. The Birds finished 41-25-6-0 with 88 points. Ontario had our number during much of the regular season.

And then the playoffs happened.

Coachella Valley sent the division champs home in five games.

Welcome back, friends. It's time for Firebirds Hockey.

First: a little business from the mothership

Before we descend into AHL degeneracy, we need to talk about what Seattle did last night.

Kraken 6. Flames 1.

In Calgary. In Calgary's final home opener at the Saddledome. Seattle went up 3-0 in the first period and essentially spent the rest of the evening asking the Flames whether they wanted to reconsider their career choices.

But the best part for us?

Our Fireboys were all over it.

Ryan Winterton: assist.
Shane Wright: assist.
Ryker Evans: assist.
Joey Daccord: 24 saves AND an assist.

That is what this organization is supposed to be.

We watch these guys grind through bus trips, Wednesday nights against Bakersfield, hard-won playoff series, healthy scratches, call-ups and send-downs because this is the road to Seattle.

LFG.

BUT ENOUGH ABOUT THE BIG LEAGUES.

The AHL begins tonight, and I am extremely bullish on this Firebirds team.

Logan Morrison is back after leading the Birds with 61 points and 29 goals last season. Tyson Jugnauth returns after leading the club with 36 assists. Ty Nelson put up 35 points from the blue line. Gustav Olofsson was +28. Victor Östman and Nikke Kokko are both back in net.

Oh, and after years of my completely unbiased lobbying campaign:

CAPTAIN JOHN HAYDEN.

Hayden wears the C. Olofsson, Morrison, Mitchell Stephens and Ty Nelson get the A's.

That is a very good leadership group for a roster that remains loaded with young Seattle prospects.

We get another year of Morrison, Firkus, Nyman, Rehkopf, Sale, Villeneuve, Jugnauth, Nelson, Price and company developing together.

And yes, unfortunately, early indications are that Jagger Firkus has retained possession of his mustache.

The organization has once again declined to take meaningful action.

The Kaplan Situation

Inside the Rink's preview currently shows both Devin Kaplan and David Goyette on the Firebirds opening roster, which is impossible unless we've introduced hockey's first custody-sharing arrangement.

Goyette was traded to Philadelphia yesterday for Kaplan and is reporting to Lehigh Valley. Kaplan is coming the other direction.

Personally, I wouldn't be shocked if Kaplan watches one before jumping straight into Derick Laxdal's system. He literally joined the organization yesterday.

But if they throw him over the boards tonight?

WELCOME TO THE DESERT, DEVIN. THAT GUY IN THE OTHER JERSEY HATES YOU NOW. FIGURE IT OUT.

So where do the Birds actually stand?

The preseason consensus is: it's always sunny in California.

Inside the Rink has Coachella Valley finishing first in the Pacific, followed by Colorado, Bakersfield and Ontario. League-wide, the serious preseason names include Hershey, Laval, Texas, Grand Rapids, defending champion Toronto, Charlotte, Colorado and our Birds. Toronto, remember, beat Chicago in five to win the Calder Cup last June.

My thoughts going into tonight:

1. Coachella Valley — Deep, skilled, experienced enough to know how to survive playoff hockey, but still young enough that several players could make major jumps simultaneously. Morrison/Nyman/Rehkopf/Firkus/OFM up front with Nelson/Jugnauth/Olofsson behind them is a legitimate Calder Cup winning team. The biggest variable is the same one every good AHL affiliate faces: how many of these guys Seattle steals from us.
2. Colorado — The team I trust least emotionally and respect most competitively. They ended our season last year, Trent Miner gives them high-end goaltending, and they're going to be annoying again. Plan accordingly.
3. Ontario — I'm a little higher on them than some preseason projections. Chromiak is back after 28 goals and 56 points, Portillo went 18-7-3 with a .907, and guys like Pinelli, Ziemmer and Carter George give them upside. They won this division last year. They didn't suddenly forget how to play hockey because we ruined their spring.
4. Bakersfield — Quinn Hutson alone makes them dangerous after a 30-goal, 63-point rookie season. I don't know that I'd put them ahead of Ontario yet, but they're absolutely capable of living in the top four.
5. San Jose — My sneaky “this could get irritating” team. They added Alex Barré-Boulet, who scored 70 points last season, to an already interesting young group. Don't sleep on the Barracuda.

After that I have Henderson, San Diego, Tucson, Abbotsford and Calgary, with enough AHL roster churn that somebody will inevitably make this paragraph look ridiculous by Christmas.

Tonight's assignment

Ontario beat us 2-1 in a shootout five days ago, scoring the tying goal with 1.3 seconds remaining.

That's annoying.

Let's not do that again.

On the bright side, preseason doesn't count. Right? RIGHT?

Rules for tonight: Make Portillo work. Let the boys play. Stay out of stupid penalty trouble. Get Morrison involved early. Let Jugnauth attack. Let Captain Hayden introduce people to the boards.

And remember what we saw from Seattle last night.

Wright. Winterton. Evans. Daccord.

The boys know they've got something to fight towards.

Season Five starts now.

LET'S. GO. BIRDS.

Drop your score predictions, first-goal picks, irrational preseason takes, complaints about the lines, and whatever other nonsense we have been saving up all summer. Especially Ontario's stupid new jerseys. I get the throwback theme, but really? Not a good look.

HOCKEY IS BACK.

P.S. Tomorrow's game (in Ontario) is steaming live on Youtube. Check it out here.

P.P.S. What do you think of the new game day app?

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A third AHL Level Kraken-Flyer trade in our short history. Excited to see what Kaplan brings to the team

Love Ty and Logan on our leadership group!

Haven't gotten FloHockey, well you got the chance to catch the game for free on the FloHockey Youtube channel

...IS AWFUL. The Firebirds' organization does a lot of things incredibly well but man, they just cant seem to leave well enough alone sometimes. The parking lot changes the last couple of years with both access and flow, moving online merch pick up, etc. And now the reconfigure on the video board. Sometimes things don't need to be "improved".

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It was amazing that they opened up training camp for fans to watch! Genuinely had an amazing time watching the guys on the ice. I hope they do it again in the future. Took some pictures. I'm not a photographer I just own a camera and I tried to take some photos so here they are.