The Victoria Royals held the title as the mid-season surprise of the Western Hockey League as they solidified a playoff position after several seasons in the wilderness.
But that mantle has been stolen at season’s end by the Wenatchee Wild, who come into Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre tonight and Friday as the Royals close out their regular-season schedule.
The Wild lost three NHL first-round draft picks from last season’s WHL regular-season championship squad (when the franchise was known as the Winnipeg Ice before the off-season move to central Washington state) yet have held steady in fourth place in the Western Conference at 33-28-4 while the Royals have faded and are in seventh place at 28-29-9.
The Wild dealt Buffalo Sabres prize-prospect Matthew Savoie, the ninth overall pick in the 2022 NHL draft, to Moose Jaw, and Conor Geekie, taken 11th overall in the 2022 NHL draft by the Arizona Coyotes, to Swift Current in blockbuster WHL trade-deadline deals this year to replenish a WHL prospects draft cupboard that was dangerously bare for the team.
Another NHL first-round draft pick, Zach Benson, selected 13th overall in 2023, was lost to the Wild when the Sabres surprisingly kept him up in the NHL this season.
Not many WHL teams lose three first-round NHL draft picks and remain competitive. But the Wild still have a core of nine players from last year’s team that made it to the league final before losing to the Seattle Thunderbirds.
It’s a group that Royals head coach James Patrick knows something about since he coached the franchise the previous six seasons when it was known as the Kootenay and Winnipeg Ice.
“I know some of the players well,” Patrick said. “But they’ve also got a lot of guys who are new that I don’t know. And some of their young players have stepped up and played really well to fill some voids for them. That’s really helped their team this year.
“They have lost three elite players. So obviously it’s a bit of a transition phase they have gone through but they have played well this year under the circumstances to be where they are in the standings.”
Patrick said there are no added feelings facing his former club, which did not retain him in the off-season move from Winnipeg to Wenatchee.
“We’ve played them already so I’ve seen them,” he said. The Royals lost both those games.
The Royals will open the Western Conference playoffs on the road March 29 and could play one of the top-three Prince George Cougars, Portland Winterhawks or Everett Silvertips in the first round but with still a possibility of meeting the mid-pack Wild, Vancouver Giants or Kelowna Rockets.
