This is where dreams are made. There are 46 Western Hockey League players, but none from the Victoria Royals, on NHL Central Scouting’s final ranking for the 2018 NHL draft.
The Royals are the lone WHL team without a player on the list. The Red Deer Rebels lead with five players followed by the Saskatoon Blades and Calgary Hitmen with four each and six teams with three players each, including the Kelowna Rockets. The Blades and Hitmen missed the playoffs this season and the Rebels, a playoff team that finished well below .500 in the regular season, are hoping for big lifts in the future from their 2018 NHL draft-ranked players.
The Royals, eliminated in the second round of the playoffs, were built for this season with 10 19-year-old players, of whom only three can return next season as over-age 20-year-olds.
Are the Royals concerned about their depth of 2000-born players, who are the ones eligible for the 2018 NHL draft? Forwards Kaid Oliver and Dino Kambeitz, defencemen Matthew Smith and Mitchell Prowse and goaltender Dean McNabb were the five 18-year-olds on the Victoria roster at the end of the season. Centre Eric Florchuk, traded mid-season by the Royals to Saskatoon, is ranked the 110th North American skater.
“It’s not about one age group, but about all of them,” said Royals head coach Dan Price, about what goes into building a WHL roster.
Royals GM Cameron Hope concurred: “We look at it more in terms of a four-year bracket [from 16- to 20-years-old]. Players like Kambeitz and Oliver learned a lot this season from being around the older players that we had, but those two may not have had the opportunities to showcase themselves on our veteran roster that they would have had on weaker teams.”
The 2000-borns, as a whole, do seem to be a down age-class for the WHL with no big-impact star power. The first WHL player on the list for the 2018 NHL draft doesn’t make an appearance until 14th-ranked North American skater Ty Smith of the Spokane Chiefs, a blue-liner from Lloydminster, Alta.
Only three other WHLers are projected for the first round — Alexander Alexeyev of the Red Deer Rebels at No. 22, Jett Woo of the Moose Jaw Warriors at No. 28 and Calen Addison of the Lethbridge Hurricanes at No. 30. But all three could be bumped to the second round once goaltenders and European draft-prospects are added to the mix.
“It’s cyclical. You get some years where there are more top-level guys from other leagues around the world,” said Hope.
“Every team starts out optimistic [about its draft-eligible class], but young athletes can change so much. Just like there will be some revelations in the upcoming 2001- and 2002-born age groups and others in those groups [who don’t pan out as projected].”
Russian-import centre Andrei Svechnikov of the Barrier Colts of the Ontario Hockey League is the top-rated 2018 North American-based skater and NCAA winger Brady Tkachuk of Boston University No. 2. The big prize of the 2018 draft, however, is defenceman and top-rated European-based skater Rasmus Dahlin from the Frolunda club in Sweden.
Kyle Topping from Salt Spring Island, who played in the Cowichan Valley youth hockey system, is a forward with the Rockets and is ranked No. 59 among North American skaters.
There are four WHL goalies listed, headed by Joel Hofer of the Swift Current Broncos at No. 7 and David Tendeck of the Vancouver Giants at No. 8.
The 2018 draft takes place June 22-23 at American Airles Center in Dallas.
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