And now everybody gets a moment to take a few deep breaths…
An almost relentless stretch of hockey came to an end for the Brandon Wheat Kings today as they wrapped up their training camp with the Black and Gold game. It was a fast-paced affair that, despite the exhaustion all parties must’ve been feeling, still managed to be physical and intense, and stayed close too.
There’s an art to drafting rosters for a game like this. Someone has to win, naturally, but you don’t want the finale of your training camp to be a blowout. In this regard, the Wheat Kings have done very well in recent years. This is my third Black and Gold game, and the second to be a one-goal contest. For a moment, I wondered if it would be the second to go to overtime.
The decision makers for the Wheat Kings get no real rest, nor much time to congratulate themselves, however. In truth, the picture for the team’s roster didn’t seem to get a whole lot clearer in the Black and Gold game, as many players fighting for spots had strong games. The decisions, in short, got no easier.
It’s a lucky thing the Wheat Kings have four more exhibition games to make some of those decisions. Chris Moulton and Marty Murray predicted the most competitive camp of their tenure with the Wheat Kings, and they were right. And we still have plenty to sort out afterwards.
As many questions as training camp began to answer, there are some things only games can teach us. Let the lessons begin.
- The Wheat Kings will play four exhibition games and, in what is a fairly significant new wrinkle for those of us who broadcast these games, players no longer need to be signed to Scholarship and Development agreements in order to play. This means players can get an extra look without signing, and teams can get a longer look at an intriguing player without fully committing to them, so in some ways it makes sense and gives players more of a window to prove themselves. It’s going to make full evaluations a little trickier, however, as some teams have been rumoured to be bringing as many as 40 players into the preseason. That might make the preseason broadcasts (of which there will be two on Q Country FM, one on September 5 and one on September 12) a little more interesting, that’s for sure. By comparison, memorizing a team’s regular season roster will be a cakewalk.
- Even against almost exclusively older competition, defenseman Ethan Young still stood out to me today at the Black and Gold game. His reads are just so sound, and he never seems to make the wrong decision with or without the puck. The TELUS Cup was a bit of a coming out party for him, and while no one would be shocked to see him get another year in the Saskatchewan U18 ranks (the Regina Pat Canadians are just such a consistently strong development organization) he has perhaps been the most improved Wheat King from last year’s camp to this year’s and looks primed for a long and successful WHL career.
- After being held off the scoresheet in the rookie game, Prabh Bhathal saved his best for last today. His snipe off the rush was a perfect showcase of what he can be as he matures, a one-man break-in with exemplary finishing ability and daunting size. Like all 16-year-olds he’s bound to need some time to adjust to the WHL, but the upside there is absolutely enormous. His skating has come a long way from last season too. Also, one final note on Bhathal, it was nice to see him and Chase Surkan work off one another a bit today. That seems like such an obvious long-term combination for the Wheat Kings given their respective skill sets.
- The camp goal scoring leader remains Tyler Magdalinski, and while he didn’t get a goal today, he still got on the scoresheet with a slick assist on Carson Park’s second period goal. Magdalinski was also consistently in good shooting position, and the puck seemed to just keep finding him in dangerous areas. He’s got a ton of skill, but again today what stood out was that if there was a scrum or loose puck in a high-danger area, he was the most likely guy to find it. A longer look against a different opponent would tell us more and I hope he gets it.
- I had a scout tell me this week he sees a similar skill set and on-ice persona in Ahmad Fayad to the one the Wheat Kings have in Caleb Hadland. High praise indeed. While Fayad doesn’t yet have Hadland’s penchant for bone-crushing hit (he’s a 2010-born player up against guys far older than him, after all) you can see the similarities. Fayad also seems to have a very cerebral side to his game, and he sees the ice well. His first season of U18 hockey at NAX, which he will spend alongside Cruz Jim and Levi Ellingsen (what a team that could be) will be fascinating to watch.
- If you’re going to base your game around hitting, blocking shots, and being miserable to play against, well, then you’d better hit, block shots, and be miserable to play against. I was thoroughly impressed with the way Max Lavoie ticked all three boxes today. The Black and Gold game was exactly the right environment for him, a game where he could let himself off the leash a little bit and really lean on players his own age and size (well, closer to his own size anyway), and he delivered, consistently rattling the glass with heavy hits. I mentioned in a previous blog his game demands a proper opponent to be fully scrutinized; how can you judge a physical player who’s holding back because he doesn’t want to hurt a future teammate? Again, I certainly hope he gets that opponent. Something tells me, whoever they are, he’s going to drive them nuts.
- We’ve talked a fair bit about how physical this Wheat Kings’ defense corps is going to be, but what stood out the most today was their skating ability. Gio Pantelas, Dylan Ronald, Adam Hlinsky, Grayson Burzynski, and Cam Allard all showed off their skating ability several times today by breaking the puck out with a well-timed rush, shedding checkers as they went. Of all of them, the defenseman who had perhaps the best day was Ronald, and not just because of his goal (though that didn’t hurt at all, it was a great shot on his part). He moved the puck up ice efficiently and showed off that speed he mentioned he’d been working on over the summer. The two blueliners I didn’t mention above, Merrek Arpin and Nigel Boehm, are notably slick skaters as well (and both bring size to boot). The blueline will have all kinds of size and snarl for the Wheat Kings, but it’s a highly mobile group back there as well.
- Keeping it with the veterans, the best line of the game was Jordan Gavin, Carter Klippenstein, and Joby Baumuller. They supplied two of Black’s three goals, and as Klippenstein told me after the game, they could’ve had several others. They owned the puck in the offensive zone, even when facing tough match ups, and though they didn’t play together much as a trio last year, or at all in camp, there seems to be some natural chemistry there. Klippenstein showed off some great offensive instincts on his goal too.
- In particular, of those three, I found myself noticing Jordan Gavin a lot. He hit a post and a crossbar with his shots (the latter of which bounced down so quickly a number of spectators thought it was in) and was his usual intelligent self with his passes, but what drew my eye back to him repeatedly was that he is noticeably quicker than last year. I’m reminded of the change in Nolan Flamand’s game last camp, the one that ultimately saw him post career highs across the board in his final WHL season. Does Gavin have a similar jump in production in him? The Wheat Kings have said all along they believe that he does, and camp gave them no reason to doubt it. Also, mentioning guys who have complimentary skillsets, he and Joby Baumuller just seem like such an obvious pairing. Each feels like he could help the other shatter their previous career highs this season.
- One last note not only from the Black and Gold game but from camp as a whole: these games, scrimmages, and drills, are not often kind to goaltenders because they tend to produce a litany of grade-A chances. Jayden Kraus looked steady, mature, and reliable, but the one goaltender people continually expressed surprise to me about was Joffrey Chan. “He doesn’t look like a 15-year-old in there” was such a common refrain I could almost have put it on a flashcard. I said it a time or two myself, to be sure. The one thing the scouts kept coming back to was that pucks would hit Chan and just sort of stick to him. He’s got the frame to be a solid goaltender down the line, but the way he directs or deadens the puck is already impressive. It’s hard for goalies, especially young goalies, to stand out in a training camp environment (again, there are just too many high-danger chances) but Chan managed to anyhow.
Part of the optimism that comes from this time of year stems from the sheer amount of hockey being played. Because there are so many skates and games, just about everybody has a moment where they look good if not great. So believe me when I say I haven’t covered every possible note here and I doubt if I even could. But I can remember standout moments for just about every player who attended camp this year. Again, it’s all part of the optimism I love about this time of the season.
The optimism, however, always feels a little frail until you test yourself against an actual opponent. And suddenly, seemingly very early this year, that first test is immediately on the horizon. As I alluded to, it’ll be a test for broadcasters too. Memorizing the Wheat Kings’ roster alone is going to be tricky enough this preseason. We don’t yet know how many players Regina will keep for the exhibition schedule.
Ah, but in that and so many other things, won’t it be great to find out? The first preseason game is only a handful of days away, and that feels good to write. We are very nearly back.
