The Victoria Royals have pretty much blown up the team to build for the future, and the season is only three weeks old.
The Royals, the only team in the Western Hockey League not to have a point, traded away veteran mainstays Kalem Parker and Brayden Schuurman to the Moose Jaw Warriors on Thursday for five draft picks. They include the Warriors’ first-round WHL prospects draft selections in 2024 and 2026, a second-round selection in 2025, a third-round pick in 2027 and fifth-round pick in 2026.
The trade also included five-foot-10, 188-pound, 18-year-old sophomore forward Ben Riche, selected 33rd overall in the second round of the 2020 WHL prospects draft, coming to the Royals after recording eight goals and 18 points in his rookie season in Moose Jaw. Riche had one assist in five games this season with the Warriors.
“This trade signals the direction we are committing to moving forward, with an emphasis on youth and player development,” said the Royals’ first-season vice-president of hockey operations Joey Poljanowski.
“These draft picks set us up to build towards the future while embracing our youth this season and adding a competitive forward in Riche,” added Poljanowski, in a statement.
Defenceman Parker and forward Schuurman represented sa国际传媒 at the 2022 IIHF world U-18 championship in Germany on a national side that included Connor Bedard.
The mobile blue-liner Parker, who played 157 games for the Royals, was selected this year in the sixth round of the NHL draft by Minnesota and attended Wild training camp. Schuurman has been a past free-agent invite to the NHL training camps of the Boston Bruins and Edmonton Oilers and has scored 50 goals with 95 points in 134 games for the Royals from 2019 to 2023.
The pair, however, have been part of a Royals era in which the team finished last in the WHL in the 2021 bubble season followed by missing the playoffs in both 2021-22 and 2022-23.
“We would like to thank Kalem and Brayden for their contributions in the community and to the Royals organization over the past three seasons,” said Poljanowski.
They will be going to a Moose Jaw team (3-2) that has won its last three games after a slow start and is clearly in it to win this season. The Warriors are ranked fourth overall in the national Canadian Hockey League top-10 poll of major-junior teams.
The Royals weren’t done dealing and also acquired 20-year-old forward Dawson Pasternak from the Brandon Wheat Kings in a separate trade Thursday for a conditional draft pick. The five-foot-nine winger, who won a USHL title in Junior A with Chicago Steel, was selected 85th overall in the 2018 WHL prospects draft by the Portland Winterhawks and has 20 goals and 53 points in 89 WHL games split between the Winterhawks and Wheat Kings.
The Royals (0-4) are in Kamloops tonight to play the Blazers (1-1-1) and meet the Rockets (1-2-1) in Kelowna on Monday.
