Because of the Victoria Royals’ surprisingly low placing during the 2016-17 Western Hockey League season, the Blades will get the 10th pick in today’s bantam draft. That goes with the rebuilding Blades’ regular pick, which will be fifth overall.
The Royals traded their 2017 first-round selection to the Blades in 2014-15 for veteran forward Alex Forsberg. With Forsberg helping lead the Royals to the WHL regular-season title in 2015-16, nobody thought the Blades would get a top-10 selection out of the deal. But the Royals surprisingly sank this past season to eighth in the Western Conference and the Blades received the kind of payback for Forsberg they couldn’t have imagined.
The Royals’ first pick today, in the 2017 WHL bantam draft in Calgary, will be 32nd overall in the second round.
“We’ll see what falls to us,” said Victoria GM Cameron Hope.
“We always do our homework in making our list.”
If a team has to be out of the first round, this may be a good year for it, said Hope, saying there is not as much consensus on the first 15 picks as there has been in the past.
“The talent is more widely spread out this year,” he said.
There are no regrets in trading the 2017 first-round pick for the graduated Forsberg, himself the No. 1 player taken in the 2010 bantam draft and now with the University of Saskatchewan Huskies, because the Royals were then a team on the verge and it was the right move for that moment.
“You do these things for a reason,” said Hope.
This is the second consecutive year in which the Royals will not have a first-round pick. Last year it hardly mattered because Victoria won the WHL regular-season title the previous year and had only the 22nd pick in the first round. So the Royals traded out of the first round entirely, swapping it for the Edmonton Oil Kings’ second- and third-round selections, and fell back to take defenceman Luke Reid in the second round with the 27th pick overall.
In doing so, Hope said they got the player they had targeted anyway and believe they received a first-round talent in Reid with a second-round pick.
“Don’t forget Matthew Phillips was a second-round pick [33rd overall behind first-rounder and 11th overall Dante Hannoun in 2013] and he has been dynamite for us,” noted Hope.
That said, Hope hasn’t ruled out a trade this year to move up but wasn’t specific about the Royals’ plans, only saying: “I think there will be trades.”
There is no more quixotic quest in hockey than drafting a 15-year-old. The players overlooked in the WHL bantam draft have included Jamie Benn, Shea Weber, Shane Doan, Jarome Iginla and numerous other future NHLers.
“Adam Lowry [Royals coach Dave Lowry’s son, now with the Winnipeg Jets] was five-foot-seven as a 15-year-old and is now six-foot-five,” added Hope, of what a crapshoot this can be.
Hope said the Royals never pick to shore up soft spots on the roster but always take the best player available for the long term. That’s mainly because most of the drafted bantam players are two, some even three, years away from playing in the WHL. That need will have changed by the time these drafted players are ready to play in the WHL.
“Two-thirds of your lineup will turn over every two seasons in the WHL,” added Hope.
Meanwhile, two Island players are projected for the first round of today’s bantam draft.
Payton Mount of Victoria, a five-foot-nine forward out of Juan de Fuca who had 30 goals and 67 points in 30 games this season for Delta Academy Prep, is ranked No. 10 overall on the Sully’s pre-draft ranking board. That board has John Little of Qualicum Beach, a six-foot forward from Shawnigan Lake School, ranked No. 19. The lanky Little had 13 goals and 27 points in 27 bantam games this season and four goals and seven points in eight games called up to the Shawnigan Lake School midget team. He doesn’t turn 15 until November.
Mount and Little have almost no chance of falling to the home-Island Royals. That is especially true of Mount.
“Payton Mount is going to be a high pick,” said Hope.
“There are no secrets about these two players. Both Mount and Little are on everybody’s radar.”
The Prince Albert Raiders will pick first today, Kootenay Ice second and Vancouver Giants third.
Six-foot-one defenceman Kaiden Guhle from Edmonton is ranked No. 1.
ICE CHIPS: Sam Steel of the Regina Pats, the future Anaheim Duck, was named 2016-17 WHL MVP on Wednesday and Ethan Bear of Seattle the top defenceman, Carter Hart of Everett best goaltender and Aleksi Heponiemi of Swift Current top rookie. . . . The Royals were named scholastic team of the year.
