The Victoria Royals, for the first time in franchise history, passed on the first round of the Western Hockey League bantam draft.
While fellow elite teams with low draft picks, Brandon and Kelowna, both traded to move up in the first round Thursday in Calgary to grab players they coveted, the Royals traded themselves out of the first round entirely.
That decision was made despite touted Island defenceman Jacson Alexander still being on the board at pick No. 17, just five spots from where the WHL regular-season champion Royals were sitting with the 22nd and last selection of the first round.
The Swift Current Broncos grabbed Alexander, out of the Shawnigan Lake School Hockey Academy, 17th overall to make him the highest Island WHL bantam draft pick since defenceman Josh Anderson of Duncan went third overall in the 2013 first round to the Prince George Cougars.
“It was a fluid situation and we had some opportunities to move up and we talked to some teams. We couldn’t get a deal done,” said Hope.
“At the same time, it was hard to know who was going to fall. We were not sure [Alexander] would last that long. We crossed our fingers and watched. But some other team [Swift Current] moved [to take Alexander].”
With some scouts predicting the Esquimalt-raised Alexander is poised to be the next Joe Hicketts, it’s anybody’s guess if this draft-day decision will come back to haunt Victoria.
“I’ve heard [Swift Current] is a small town where everybody knows each other at the rink and that makes the games great,” said Alexander. “I’m excited.”
Because of a trade in past seasons, the Royals had no scheduled second-round draft slot this year. That likely became the rationale for Victoria to trade its first-round 22nd selection to Edmonton in exchange for the Oil Kings’ second- and third-round picks. With them, Victoria chose defencemen Luke Reid from Warman, Sask., with the 27th pick overall in the second round and Jonathon Lambos from Winnipeg with the 49th pick in the third round.
Hope expressed satisfaction that Victoria still managed to get a defenceman of the future in the five-foot-11, 180-pound Reid, who had six goals and nine assists in 43 games for the Battleford Stars Midget triple-A team.
“We had Reid rated much higher than where we got him in the second round,” said Hope.
“He is going to be a good player in the WHL. Reid is a good all-round defenceman — smart with a high hockey IQ, yet he also plays with grit. Lambos is also a smooth defenceman, but with grit, too.”
Hope pointed to Royals’ late-round U.S. picks — defenceman Mitchell Becker and forwards Mason Kruse and Shane Griffin, all from Minnesota, and goaltender Brock Gould from Colorado Springs — as potential steals if they choose the WHL over the NCAA.
The Royals picked three times in the fourth round, taking forwards Tarun Fizer from Chestermere, Alta., at No. 69, Luke Mylymok from Wilcox, Sask., 81st and Tyus Gent from Delta at No. 88. Forward Elan Bar-Lev-Wise came in the sixth round at No. 132, forward Isaac Alvarado from West Vancouver in the seventh round at No. 154. The Americans Kruse were taken at No. 151 in the seventh round and Griffin at No. 159, Gould at 170 and Becker at 176 in the eighth round.
“I felt our draft went well for a team that picked so low because of our success this season,” said Hope.
The overall No. 1 selection, by the Kootenay Ice, was forward Peyton Krebs of Okotoks, Alta.
It was a bountiful draft for Campbell River with four players selected from the Island town — forward Jalen Price, 63rd overall in the third round by the Medicine Hat Tigers; forward Nolan Corrado, 71st in the fourth round by Swift Current; forward River Fahey, 74th in the fourth round by the Red Deer Rebels; and defenceman Matthew Ubriaco, 191st in the ninth round to the Kamloops Blazers.
Other Island players taken were defenceman Kabore Dunn of Mill Bay, 70th in the fourth round by the Kootenay Ice; forward Corson Hopwo of Duncan, 138th in the seventh round to Medicine Hat; forward Cody Shepheard of Qualicum Beach, 155th in the eighth round to Kootenay; and goaltender Blake Wood from Nanaimo, 169th in the eighth round to the Blazers
Meanwhile, the Royals traded a conditional 2018 eighth-round pick to Moose Jaw for two-season WHL forward Blake Bargar (one goal, one assist in 60 games this season).
