It is estimated the Earth’s magnetic poles shifted 780,000 years ago. The Western Hockey League’s poles began their shift with Tuesday’s trade deadline with historically massive moves by lower-end teams to deal away veteran talent to currently contending teams in order to build for the future.
The Victoria Royals, who sit last in the B.C. Division, decided not to be part of the WHL’s Great Flip, which could see the now-powerful Seattle Thunderbirds, Winnipeg Ice and 2023 Memorial Cup-hosting Kamloops Blazers be replaced by the Vancouver Giants, Kelowna Rockets, Everett Silvertips, Spokane Chiefs, Brandon Wheat Kings, Prince Albert Raiders and Edmonton Oil Kings at the top of the table over the next few seasons through to about 2030.
Blockbuster has often been overused as a term to describe trades. But recent-days WHL deals have been truly epic, with the Giants and Rockets both unloading their captains, for a flotilla of future picks in the WHL prospects draft.
“It’s unprecedented. We’ve never seen or heard anything like this before. There were some very aggressive moves,” said Royals GM and head coach Dan Price.
Vancouver sent captain and Canadian world junior champion Zack Ostapchuk to Winnipeg for two players and the Ice’s first-round draft picks in 2024, 2025 and 2026. Combined with earlier deals, Vancouver now has nine first-round draft picks in the next four WHL drafts. Victoria plays the Giants more than any other team. How will the Royals be able to compete with this infusion of high-end young talent coming to the Giants in the seasons ahead?
Kelowna, meanwhile, traded captain and Canadian world junior player Colton Dach to the Thunderbirds for two young players, including Victoria-product Ethan Mittelsteadt, and Seattle’s first-round pick in 2024 and a conditional second-round pick in 2025. The Thunderbirds also unloaded a barrage of conditional draft picks the way of the Oil Kings in exchange for the rights to Canadian gold-medal game world junior overtime hero Dylan Guenther if he is returned this season to the WHL from the NHL’s Arizona Coyotes.
The Silvertips shipped world junior gold-medallist Olen Zellweger and Washington Capitals-prospect Ryan Hofer to the Blazers for four young players and 10 draft picks, including Kamloops’ next four first-round selections in 2023, 2024, 2025 and 2026, a second-round pick this year and a conditional second-rounder in 2026 and a third-round selection in 2025.
The moves continued on deadline day with the Wheat Kings acquiring the Saskatoon Blades’ first-round pick this year and second-round selections in 2025 and 2026 for 20-year-old forward Jake Chiasson.
Western Conference last-place Spokane over the weekend sent veteran forward Blake Swetlikoff to the Lethbridge Hurricanes for a second-round selection in the 2026 draft and the rights to 16-year-old prize-prospect and Las Vegas-native Jack Lackas, the second overall selection in the 2021 WHL U.S. prospects draft. That follows an earlier trade in which Spokane sent their starting goaltender and San Jose Sharks prospect, Mason Beaupit, to the championship-minded Ice for three draft picks.
Price said the reason the Royals did not partake in the deadline trading frenzy is that no deals similar to that offered the Giants and Silvertips were on offer to Victoria.
“Those kinds of deals did not present themselves to us,” said Price.
“If [Royals captain and NHL-signed] Gannon Laroque, for example, does not [gain] in return the kind of draft capital Vancouver and Everett got, we are not going to make a deal just for the sake of making a move. You never want to sell at a bargain. If it’s not the right deal for the team, it makes more sense to stand pat. The deals available did not warrant making them. It has to be the best deal. A deal did not present itself. Sometimes the best deal is no deal.”
In fairness to the Victoria brass, Giants GM Barclay Parneta told the Province newspaper this wasn’t by design and he wasn’t shopping Ostapchuk around but that the deal offered by the Ice was simply too good, too overwhelmingly immense, to refuse.
With the Royals staying put with the in-house roster, whether forced to through lack of choice or not, the question becomes will they remain lowly or perhaps improving only to the muddling middle in the seasons ahead?
“We have deep belief in this group,” responded Price.
With the Giants, Rockets, Chiefs and Silvertips seriously downgrading for this season, it puts even more pressure on the Royals to make the playoffs this spring. They stood pat last season at the trade deadline, as well, and got burned by holding onto veteran assets Tarun Fizer and Bailey Peach and missed out on both the playoffs and adding high draft picks for the future. That scenario can’t happen for this organization for a second straight year.
“That’s not added pressure because our expectation always is to get in the playoffs and make noise in the playoffs,” said Price.
Victoria (10-25-4) is ninth in the Western Conference and sits five points adrift of eighth place, and the final playoff berth, with No. 8 Kelowna having three games in hand.
The Royals and Rockets meet in a key set Friday and Saturday at Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre.
