The Victoria Royals joined in a swirling week of trades in the Western Hockey League, but to reinforce the present, not build for the future such as other fellow low-in-the-standings teams Edmonton, Prince Albert and Spokane.
The Royals acquired 20-year-old forward Alex Thacker from the Lethbridge Hurricanes for Victoria’s fourth-round selection in the 2026 WHL prospects draft. The Royals already had their quota of three 20-year-olds, so forward Caleb Willms was released to make room for Thacker, who had a goal and seven points in 16 games for the Hurricanes this season after recording 14 goals and 64 points in 68 games last season. His 50 assists last season certainly stand out.
“[Thacker] is primarily a distributor with very good vision and is very versatile and can play centre or wing,” said Royals GM and head coach Dan Price.
“He is [five-foot-10 and 180 pounds] but has courage and goes to the net.”
But is patching the current 3-14-3 Royals team the answer? Especially after what the Prince Albert Raiders (7-12-2) and Edmonton Oil Kings (2-17-1) did this week and Spokane Chiefs (4-11-1) also this month. The Raiders sent their captain and NHL first-round Chicago Blackhawks draft pick Nolan Allan to the contending Seattle Thunderbirds for three younger players and six WHL prospects draft picks, including first-round selections in 2023 and 2024, a second-round selection in 2026 and a third-round pick in 2024 in a blockbuster deal.
The defending league-champion Oil Kings also went the rebuild mode by trading NHL fourth-round Las Vegas Golden Knights draft pick Jakub Demek, a 19-year-old forward who played for Slovakia in the 2022 world junior championship, to Kamloops for the Blazers’ first-round pick in the 2023 WHL prospects draft and a conditional second-round selection in 2024, a conditional third rounder and a fourth rounder in 2026. Kamloops is hosting the Memorial Cup this season while the Oil Kings went to the Cup tournament last spring.
“We felt it was important to continue to recover from some of the moves we made to build our team for last season’s WHL championship and Memorial Cup run,” Oil Kings GM and president of hockey operations Kirt Hill said in a statement.
Spokane sent their starter and San Jose Sharks goaltending prospect, Mason Beaupit, to the contending Winnipeg Ice for three draft picks.
Price, however, is not willing at this point to pull the plug on this season to revamp for the future.
“It’s a fair question and we are always monitoring that,” he said.
“We have to be careful not to over-react because of our injury situation. When we look at who has not been in our lineup this season — the top-third of our roster has been out — we believe we will be very competitive when everyone becomes available.”
Victoria’s injury situation continues to haunt the club. sa国际传媒 U-18 forward Brayden Schuurman returned to the lineup for four games, after being hurt in the NHL rookie camp of the Boston Bruins, only to go out again and is week-to-week. Also out, but now day-to-day, is Danish-import forward Marcus Almquist, denying the Royals two key offensive threats. It’s even worse on the defensive side. Top-pairing blue-liner Wyatt Wilson, who skated in the NHL rookie camp of the Winnipeg Jets, is out three-to-four months. Royals captain Gannon Laroque, the NHL-signed San Jose Sharks blue line prospect who has yet to play this season, has begun skating away from team practice for the first time since surgery in the summer. It will be a while yet until Laroque returns — likely costing his chance of being invited to the sa国际传媒 selection camp for the 2023 world junior championship — but it’s the first bit of encouraging news regarding his recovery.
The Royals held on to graduating veteran assets Tarun Fizer and Bailey Peach last season and got burned with neither a playoff berth nor future first-round draft picks to show for it.
But Price staunchly believes, and is banking on, this being a far different Royals team when Laroque, Schuurman, Almquist and Wilson get back in the lineup abetted by the addition of Thacker and forward Robin Sapousek, the latter who the Royals selected seventh overall in the 2022 CHL import draft. Sapousek has come to terms with Victoria after opening with 18 points in 11 games with HC Karlovy Vary of the Czech Extraliga. Sapousek, who helped lead the Czechs to fourth place in the U-18 Hlinka Gretzky Cup over the summer, will join the Royals early next month if he is not named to the Czech team for the 2023 world junior championship in Halifax and Moncton. If he is selected, he will join the Royals in early January.
ON THE ICE: The Royals host the Prince George Cougars (10-9), and their dynamic forward duo of Riley Heidt and Koehn Ziemmer, Friday night and Saturday at the Memorial Centre. Heidt is ranked for the first round of the 2023 NHL draft and Ziemmer for the second to third rounds.
Ziemmer’s 33 points on the seasons is second in the WHL only to Regina Pats prodigy Connor Bedard’s 46. Heidt was named WHL player of the week with four multi-point games during his current five-game points streak.
Both show the value of high draft picks. As the result of several lowly seasons, the Cougars selected Heidt second overall in the 2020 WHL prospects draft behind Bedard, and Ziemmer fourth overall in 2019 behind eventual 2022 NHL draft ninth-overall pick Matthew Savoie (Buffalo Sabres) and 2022 NHL draft 11th overall pick Connor Geekie (Arizona Coyotes). The Cougars also nabbed defenceman Keaton Dowhaniuk third overall in that 2019 WHL prospects draft in a trade with Regina.
