On the way to Kelowna over the weekend for their final Western Hockey League pre-season game, the Victoria Royals stopped in Penticton to watch four current Royals and just-graduated former Victoria player Ben Walker in the NHL Young Stars tournament game featuring the rookie teams of the Winnipeg Jets and Calgary Flames.
There was a purpose to the viewing.
“To see five of their peers in that setting should excite our guys,” said Royals head coach Dave Lowry.
“It gave our players a chance to see the next level is not far off and that they have an opportunity,” added Lowry, who on a personal basis, got a chance to catch-up with his son and Jets prospect Adam Lowry.
To watch Royals forward Axel Blomqvist record two assists for the Jets rookies, one on a goal by Walker, and Royals defenceman and Flames prospect Keegan Kanzig deliver the hit of the game was a bonus for the Victoria players watching from the stands.
Yet, the greatest selling point of major-junior hockey — its connection to pro hockey — is also its most frustrating drawback this time of year.
It is up to the NHL teams when Royals players Kanzig, Austin Carroll, Brandon Magee return from Flames rookie camp, Blomqvist from the Jets, Joe Hicketts from the Detroit Red Wings and Travis Brown from the Ottawa Senators.
They could be returned this week or invited to stay on for their respective NHL teams main camps.
The first player returned of the group has been Magee. But, ironically, it matters little in the early part of the season because the Royals’ defending scoring champion is suspended for the first 12 WHL games due to an incident in the final playoff game last spring in Portland.
So the Royals, preparing for their regular-season openers Friday in Kamloops against the Blazers and Saturday in Vancouver against the Giants, don’t anticipate making any cuts this week.
“We have no bodies,” is Lowry’s blunt assessment of a WHL coach’s lot this time of year.
When asked who will bear the responsibility of captaincy for opening weekend, Lowry replied: “We don’t know yet … I’ll see who I have [in the lineup by Friday].”
The situation gives the younger Royals aspirants early regular-season openings to play and state their cases that they belong on the roster.
Rookies Dante Hannoun, Matthew Campese, Jared Dmytriw, Kristian Ferletak, Ralph Jarratt and Regan Nagy can’t ask for a better shot than that. Neither can some veterans who may also be on the bubble.
If you’ve chosen this path, now is the moment to show you really want it.
“Hockey is a priority in their lives now,” said Lowry.
“But it comes down to how well they play. The ice time comes and it goes. It’s a reward.”
Including Magee and the five players remaining in NHL rookie camps, the Royals have 23 skaters and three goaltenders currently on the roster.
The latter is because the team has yet to make a decision whether Michael Herringer from Comox or Evan Smith from Colorado will be the back-up goaltender this season behind veteran Coleman Vollrath.
“We’re going to be patient [with the backup goaltending decision],” said Royals GM Cam Hope.
“Both [Herringer and Smith] have played well enough during the pre-season to stick around.”
ICE CHIPS: The undrafted Hicketts, a free-agent invite, has been one of the revelations of the Red Wings’ rookie camp. The Royals blue-liner scored the OT goal and had an assist against the St. Louis Blues rookies in a prospects tournament in Traverse City, Mich., and added another goal Monday against the Minnesota Wild rookies … The most successful pro, and only current NHLer, among the alumni from the eight-season history of the Chilliwack Bruins/Victoria Royals franchise is undrafted 27-year-old Nick Holden, who has 61 career NHL games and this summer signed a three-year extension with the Colorado Avalanche following a breakout 2013-14 campaign.
