Firebirds 2024-25 Season
The 2024-25 season for the Coachella Valley Firebirds ended on May 9th with a 2-0 loss to the Abbotsford Canucks. Overall, that series saw the Firebirds score
This isn't surprising given exactly how young the Firebirds were this season, but it was disappointing.
Coach Laxdal talked a lot about how young the team was and how on any given night we would have anywhere from seven to nine rookies that were in the starting lineup. And in a team of 24, that's a pretty big portion of guys out there who are very young.
That being said the disappointment is palpable the this is the earliest that the Firebirds have ever exited the postseason. Granted this is only their third year but we are typically used to seeing hockey for another seven weeks. When put into that perspective, it is really disappointing.
Still, I think there were some really bright spots from this year, including Leyton Roed, Jani Nyman, Nikke Kokko, Ryan Winterton, and Ty Nelson.
At the start of the season, I did indicate to a friend of mine (who also has season tickets) that I had pretty low expectations for the Firebirds and may have even indicated I wasn't sure that they would make the playoffs. The Pacific Division has 10 teams and 7 of them make the playoffs. I may have been a bit too pesimisitic in that analysis.
During the first round the Firebirds swept the Wrangerls 2-0. This is great, but they did manage to blow a 3-0 lead in game 1. The were able to win that game, but it took two plus Overtime periods (it ended a few minutes into the third OT).
Game two of that series did see the Firebirds win 2-0 with Nikke Kokko getting his first professional AHL shutout, which was great . But it's also a bummer that it took until the 74th game of the season for him to get his first shutout of the season. 1
In six games, the Firebirds were 3-3. They scored four goals, two goals, one goal, five goals, one goal, and no goals. They were 0-17 on the power play, and they gave up two, count them two, 3 goal leads.
Needless to say, this was just a hard set of games to watch. The season was hard to watch as a fan. The Firebirds would find ways to lose games. In previous seasons these were the games that they would find some way to win!
There was an article in the Desert Sun that spoke about how proud Coach Laxdal was of the players and how much effort that they gave. And I agree, they did give a lot of effort and he spoke about how young they are.
And again, they are young, and missed their captain Max McCormick for basically two thirds of the season. But they did have some veteran players out there Mitchell Stephens, Brandon Biro, Cale Fleury and Gustav Olofsson. Unfortunately it was just too much to try and overcome.
One of the things that Coach Laxdal also commented on was exactly how much younger next year's team might be. And so while I am again very excited about watching hockey in six months, which is just so long away. I am lowering my expectations for the 25-26 season even lower than they were this year. I'm really hoping we make the playoffs, but won't be surprised if we don't.
And that's going to be okay ... because even bad hockey is still hockey. And I love hockey, and even when they lose, I love watching the Firebirds.
- During the regular season, there was exactly one shutout by Victor Ostman ↩︎
all-star-break-doldrums
Since the All-Star break the Firebirds entered what is arguably their softest part of their schedule with games against San Diego, Henderson, San Diego again, Bakersfield, and Tucson. These 4 teams are in the bottom of the Pacific division and in San Diego's case they are 20+ points behind the Firebirds.
I'm not sure what the hell is going on, but in their first game in San Diego they won in Over time in what should have been a blow out, in their second game in Henderson they lost by 1 goal.
In their first home game post All Star break they again played San Diego and lost 5-3 (the last goal being an empty netter so 🤷🏼) but they also gave up 2 goals in less than 40 seconds in the second period. That ended up really being the different.
That means 3 games into their 5 game 'soft' patch and they're 1-2. They play Bakersfield tomorrow night and I sure hope they find a way to get back into their winning ways because this has been some pretty shitty hockey to watch. The Firebirds are 2-3 against the Condors this season and have yet to beat the Condors at home this season.
To quote Han Solo, "I have a bad feeling about this"