The return of cornerstone defencemen Nate Misskey and Austin Zemlak couldn’t come at a more crucial time for the Victoria Royals. Especially with the likes of Prince George Cougars’ forwards Terik Parascak and Riley Heidt bearing down on the Royals’ blue line in Western Hockey League games tonight and Saturday at Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre.
Parascak has 94 points and was ranked this week by Sportsnet as the 24th player overall for the 2024 NHL draft. Heidt, selected in the second round of the 2023 NHL draft by the Minnesota Wild, has 109 points this season and moved into the all-time top-10 Victoria/Prince George Cougars list with 265 career points.
Heidt is the only player in the Cougars career top-10 from the Prince George years and not from the years the franchise skated in Victoria from 1971-72 to 1993-94. With five games remaining, the No. 9 position, held by the late Cougars forward Gary Lupul (296 points), looks out of reach this season for Heidt. Whether he will move further up the career list depends on if the Wild return Heidt to junior hockey with the Cougars next season. He is behind Mark Morrison with 394 points, Barry Pederson with 376, Rich Chernomaz with 335, Curt Fraser with 323, Simon Wheeldon with 321, Ken Priestlay with 317, Adam Morrison with 301, Geordie Robertson with 297 and Lupul.
Regardless, Heidt will be a handful for Misskey and Zemlak on their returns this weekend, which has been announced for Misskey and listed as likely for Zemlak.
“It’s tough to be out with injury and we’ve had a lot here recently and it’s been tough on the team,” said Misskey, ranked for the 2024 NHL draft, and who missed 22 games.
“I am ready to get back. It’s exciting times to help the team out again. It was tough watching. I wanted to be out helping the team.”
The time away helped the six-foot-three, 210-pound native of Melfort, Sask., see the patterns and issues that led to the team dropping off its pace the past few months from a strong start.
“You see different things from the stands,” said Misskey.
“We’ve just got to keep battling. I saw some opening to improve my game as well. Locking down the defensive zone is going to be huge for us playing some of these teams we’re playing down the stretch.
All the closing two-game sets, starting last weekend with the Everett Silvertips, and continuing this weekend with Western Conference-leading Prince George (44-15-4) and next week at home against the Wenatchee Wild, are potential first-round playoff opponents for the current Western Conference sixth-place Royals (28-27-9).
“It gives us a chance to see what they are like, while we still have so many guys out, that they won’t see our full team,” said Misskey.
“Coming into playoffs, we are going to be pushing for it, and hoping to go for it all.”
Whether the injury set back his draft status is something Misskey won’t know until June: “It’s always in back of your head. It happens and you can’t really control it. I’m just focusing on getting back into playing and being in the playoff push and leaving the draft out of it.”
Perhaps the guy happiest to see the return of Misskey and Zemlak is Royals goaltender Braden Holt, who has been buried under a hailstorm of rubber with them out of the lineup.
“It’s going to be huge to get those two guys back. Misskey and Zemlak are two of the best defencemen in the league and great leaders in the locker room,” said Holt,
“It’s going to be a great morale boost to get them back.”
But the Royals are still wading deep in injuries with Arizona Coyotes-drafted defenceman Justin Kipkie, injured last week, listed as day-to-day, blue-liners Hudson Bjornson and Ryan Spizawka week-to-week, defenceman Seth Fryer also hobbled, forward Robin Sapousek month-to-month and forward Reggie Newman day-to-day. Alex Edwards has one game remaining on his eight-game suspension.
The Cougars haven’t had that volume but have had a key player out long-term in injured third-round Los Angeles Kings drafted forward Koehn Ziemmer.
