They have earned just three of a possible 14 points available in the past seven games, but the Victoria Royals aren’t pushing any panic buttons.
Head coach Dan Price said he couldn’t find fault in his team’s efforts in recent 3-2 shootout and 4-1 losses in Kelowna and Kamloops, respectively, stating the results were perhaps disappointing, but not the work ethic.
General manager Cam Hope isn’t about to post fire sale signs outside the Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre before tonight’s 7 p.m. clash against the Everett Silvertips, but he did make two trades on Thursday, just six days before the Western Hockey League trade deadline.
“The path now is we have our three 20-year-olds and, unless something changes which I’m not aniticpating, I like this group,” Hope said of his club that sits with a 21-15-3-1 record overall, but just 3-6-0-1 in their last 10.
“I think we all know what Chaz Reddekopp and Tyler Soy are and we’ve just begun to learn how good a player Kade Jensen is when you see him up close,” Hope said of his remaining 20-year-olds after trading Regan Nagy away on Tuesday. “I’m pleased with where we are.”
Hope acquired Russian-born import forward Andrei Grishakov on Thursday from the Calgary Hitmen in exchange for a third round draft pick in the 2019 WHL bantam draft. This season, the six-foot-one, 200-pound native of Chelyabinsk, had 11 goals and 15 assists in 37 games in Calgary. He then added forward D-Jay Jerome (one assist and 40 PIMS in 31 games) from Prince Albert in exchange for Jeremy Masella.
Injuries have affected the Royals’ play of late as Nagy was out with a broken finger before he was dealt, then talented forward Noah Gregor fractured his wrist. Dante Hannoun just returned from mononucleosis and Igor Martynov remains at the world junior tournament with Belarus.
Asked if he was concerned with the results in the recent seven outings, Hope said: “No, not at all.”
“We knew we would struggle if we had some key guys out of the lineup. Nagy was a key guy, at the time he went out, and since then Noah Gregor has gone down. Igor Martynov is off at the world juniors so we’ve been missing some key pieces,” he explained.
“We really haven’t had any time, in the last eight weeks, where we’ve had our team all together. Once we get everybody back and healthy we’ll be a different team.”
He stated he would not be selling the farm for the future, for example, moving NHL-signed players to teams making their playoff runs, while also keeping an eye to building a team toward a possible position of playing host to a Memorial Cup with their 2020 bid.
“It’s funny, I get calls about almost everybody, but I think all the other general managers know not to bother calling about Matt Phillips,” Hope added. “I’m not in sell mode, no. One thing I’ve learned about this league is you can worry about tomorrow, tomorrow, particularly when it’s two years down the road.
“These teams tend to change over. I know our teams change over about half its players each year with its graduations and situations with 20-year-olds and new guys coming in. This team will be unrecognizable two years from now, most likely, and if we’re lucky enough to get the Memorial Cup, we’ll be building the team with an eye toward that, but that’s for tomorrow,” said Hope.
GAME NOTES: The Silvertips come in at 23-14-1-1 and 8-2-0-0 in their last 10, although they are without star netminder Carter Hart, who is with Team Canada at the world juniors. Everett is 11-8-0-0 on the road, while the Royals are 12-5-1-0 at home.
