Victoria Royals general manager Cam Hope cleared up his over-age issue on Tuesday, shipping 20-year-old Regan Nagy to the Prince Albert Raiders for what could be an interesting part of the organization’s future.
Hope acquired the rights to unsigned, 2002-born forward Hunter Strand, a third-round pick in the 2019 WHL bantam draft, and sixth- and 10th-round picks in 2018 from the Raiders.
Strand, of Anchorage, Alaska, is a five-foot-11, 165-pound, 15-year-old who plays for the Alaska Oilers under-16 midget AAA team. In 21 games, he leads the team in points (42) and goals (26).
Strand attended the 2017 USA Hockey Boys Select 15 player development camp for Team Forest in July. In three contests, he tied for first in scoring on his team with two goals and two assists.
However, he does have a commitment to the University of Notre Dame in Indiana.
Hope and his staff scouted Strand heavily at the 2016 Rick LaPointe Memorial Bantam AAA tournament in Victoria, where he recorded 10 goals and eight assists in five games.
Hope gave up a lot in Nagy, who had 18 goals and 24 points in 26 games before he broke his finger. But the GM had to make a move, with four 20-year-olds on the roster including Tyler Soy, Chaz Reddekopp and recently acquired Kade Jensen.
“When a guy has been here five years, it’s a tough one,” Hope said of moving Nagy, a second-round, 27th-overall pick of the Royals in 2012. Nagy played five seasons here, with 97 points (including 50 goals) in 253 games.
In Strand there is tremendous potential, if they can persuade him to come.
“He’s got a verbal commitment for 2020-21, so we’ll see,” Hope said. “We’ve got several players on our list that have college commitments down the road. We’ll see. If the circumstances change, we’d sure like him to give us some consideration, but that’s a discussion for down the road.
“We had a lot of great reports on him. He was a very good player at the Rick LaPointe tournament and at KIBIT last year [the Kamloops bantam tournament], where he was terrific and led the tournament in scoring,” Hope said.
“We’ve had our eye on him. And the only reason he was drafted as late as he was (the sixth round), was [that] all teams, including ours, thought there was a chance that he would be taking a while to make the decision on his path. With guys like that, you tend to wait a few rounds just to be sure.
“We were disappointed when P.A. drafted him, but in a roundabout way, he’s come back to us.”
Hope said there were a several suitors for Nagy.
“The most aggressive was Prince Albert,” he said. “I’d received lots of calls about all our 20-year-olds because every GM knew we had four. There was a lot of interest in Regan.”
But Hope is pleased with what he got in return.
“I think it suits us well. We had to do it, unfortunately,” he said. “You’d like to keep everyone, but in the end we received four assets of varying levels that we can put into good use.”
Hope also stressed he is not in sell mode as the Jan. 10 trade deadline nears.
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