Oil Kings Draft Twice - add Oiler Pick

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The Edmonton Oil Kings have made their two CHL Import Draft selections and have added a Czech defenceman and a Latvian forward to the team, the latter having been chosen by the Edmonton Oilers in the NHL Draft over the weekend. The two newest Oil Kings are blueliner Marek Hrbas and winger Kristians Pelss.

GM Bob Green will join Guy Flaming on The Pipeline Show this evening to discuss the newest members of the organization.

Oil Kings Coach Search Down to Five

It's pretty hard not to bump into a scout, GM or Coach from any level of hockey here in Brandon at the Mastercard Memorial Cup, and thankfully they all hang out behind the media section. That's where I found out tonight the search to replace Steve Pleau as Oil Kings head coach is down to 5 guys, and none have recent WHL experience.

Oil Kings list Oilers prospect

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TPS has learned that back in October the Edmonton Oil Kings added 2009 Oilers draft pick Troy Hesketh to their protected list, meaning should Hesketh decide to play in the WHL, he'll skate in Edmonton.

King Sized Deal, and more to come from Edmonton

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Edmonton and Brandon hooked up for a King sized deal today as Brandon loads up for the Memorial Cup, while Edmonton officially arrived in next year land.

Oil Kings Deal Forward

The battle for the Edmonton Oil Kings 3rd 20 year old is now down to a couple of defenceman after Edmonton dealt overage forward Craig McCallum (pictured courtesy www.oilkings.ca) to the Prince Albert Raiders for a conditional bantam draft pick in 2010. From the official team release, here are comments from G.M. Bob Green.

"It is very difficult to make these decisions for our 20 year old roster spots, with the number of talented players we have in camp," says General Manager Bob Green. "Craig is a good kid and a good hockey player. This move will make it possible for him to continue his career in the WHL."

McCallum netted 31 goals in 2 seasons for the Oil Kings. He was absent from the team for 2 games in last year's first round playoff loss to Calgary because of personal reasons, but that wasn't the reason for making this deal. Credit Bob Green for finding a place for McCallum to continue his WHL career, as it was fairly clear to most he wasn't going to stick with the Kings this year.

With Torrie Jung and Brett Breitkreuz pretty much locking up 2 overage spots, it now comes down to Drew Nichol and Garrett Thiessen for the final spot.

Edmonton wraps up the pre season this Friday in Barrhead taking on Calgary.

Oil Kings & the WHL Bantam Draft

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The Edmonton Oil Kings managed to do something today that their parent NHL club has repeatedly failed to do - they traded up in the draft and took how one of the truly elite players available.

More on that in a second.

The Portland Winter Hawks had the first decision to make on the day and opted to take Derrick Pouliot, a defenceman who played in Weyburn Saskatchewan. International Scouting Services had Pouliot slotted 9th on their list and had this to say about him in their WHL Draft Guide:

"A tremendously intelligent puck moving defenseman, Pouliot is often on the ice at the same time as Balog and shows incredible poise and control in finding his, often well covered but extremely gifted, teammate in open ice. Pouliot has great two way speed and great control of his angles and gap against puck carriers. He controls the lanes well in his own zone and once he gains control of the puck he has the hands and poise with the puck to get out of pressure and move down ice. He will carry the puck end to end and has a very strong shot from speed. Any team looking to add offence from the back side without sacrificing too much defensively will have Pouliot high on their list."

After the draft I had a chance to chat with Winter Hawks GM and Head Coach Mike Johnston and you can hear his comments on why Pouliot was the right guy for Portland... HERE.

The next team to the podium was the Moose Jaw Warriors. I spotted Chad Lang in active discussions with several GMs during the course of the day and in fact his club did make a few draft pick swaps. However, the Warriors were only too happy to have the #2 pick in the draft and wasted no time in choosing Morgan Reilly. The blueliner played Notre Dame this past season but hails from West Vancouver originally. ISS had Reilly ranked 4th and earlier in the week I offered up their comments about him. HERE, Chad Lang expalins why Rielly was the right man for the Warriors.

The Chilliwack Bruins were slated to pick 3rd but the host team decided to make a splash instead.

GM Bob Green pulled the trigger on a the day's biggest deal as he packaged Edmonton's own 1st round pick (9th overall), Prince George's 3rd round pick (acquired last year for Cameron Cepek), veteran forward Shayne Neigum as well their 2009 Import Draft pick to Chilliwack in exchange for the 3rd overall selection and the Bruins' Import pick in 2010.

With the 3rd pick of the draft Edmonton continued the parade of defencemen by selecting Griffin Reinhart. The son of former NHL defenceman Paul Reinhart (CGY & VAN) spent this past season with the Hollyburn Midget A1 Huskies in B.C. Here is the write up of the deal from the Oil Kings site. According to his dad/coach, Reinhart is 6'4 and 190 lbs... as a 14 year old! This guy could easily grow a couple more inches and end up Colten Teubert or Alex Plante sized which is exactly what the Oil Kings have really been missing from their blueline.

Not to be overlooked in this deal is the swap of Import Draft picks. With Tomas Vincour and Robin Soudek coming back, the Oil Kings really have no use for their 2009 pick but could conceivably need 2 this time next summer and the Bruins one is likely going to be much earlier than Edmonton's.

There was a 15-minute break after the first round during which time I had a chance to talk to Assistant GM Randy Hansch about the trade and the selection of Reinhart. Listen HERE.

Instead of me describing all the picks of the day I will suggest you read Alan Caldwell's blog called Small Thoughts At Large as he did a bang up job during the course of the day and lists stats for each player too.

I will get into some description of the rest of Edmonton's picks though starting with the round 2 selection of Left Winger Mitchell Moroz. Moroz, a power forward from Calgary, was ranked 18th overall by ISS and the Oil Kings were able to land him with the 30th pick. ISS:

"Few players in this draft are as competitive as Mitch Moroz. The heart and soul of the Northstars this season, Moroz is an energic animal who loves to battle. His great size and strength help him push his way through the boards with the puck. Moroz attacks with great speed and loves to shoot, in fact it’s not often
that he looks to set up a play or pass, he loves to get the puck on net and drive in hard. Moroz is not afraid to mix it up after the play either, if he doesn’t like something, he’ll be sure to react to it. Moroz protects the puck very well and will
punish anyone who tries to keep it away from him. A solid checker, Moroz can change a game with his stick, his effort or a big bone crunching hit.

WHL Potential: Excellent secondary scoring option and energetic role player

Round 3 saw Edmonton taking Center Morgan Zulinick of Kamloops. At 5'8, Zulinick is definitely small but he's quick and talented. ISS had him ranked 40th overall so Edmonton does well here to get him 52nd overall. Here is what ISS had to say about him:

"Plays like a big man, similar in mold to a Joe Thornton type player. Zulinick is an excellent passer who loves to set up the play, but can also score when called upon. Zulinick is very smooth with the puck and can dazzle with his quick hands and great body control. Turned many scouts heads when he was selected to the KIBIHT all star game last season as a first year bantam player, a feat that isn’t very common."

Matthew Miller became Oil King property in Round 4 when the home team called his name in the 74th spot. Miller did not appear in the top 100 for ISS blueliner of the Winnipeg Monarchs has decent size and can play at both ends of the rink.

The first local boy Edmonton took this year was forward Tristan Sieben who ISS had ranked 17th overall. They also had him 2nd in the "best hands" category and 5th for "Pure Scorer". Here are the comments from ISS:

"A tremendously gifted offensive talent, Sieben can dominate players with his extremely high skill level. A tremendous puck handler, Sieben dances his way through players and has the skating ability to get free and into dangerous scoring areas all
on his own. The biggest knock on Sieben is that he can be a bit selfish at times and will try to do it all on his own.

WHL Potential: Great goal scorer"

Edmonton's 6th round choice was Cody Pettapeace, another defenceman. The blueliner is in line for a jump to Midget AAA next year after his last season in Saskatoon.

In Round 7 the Oil Kings did something I didn't expect - they drafted a goalie. Wade Moyls is a 6'3 14-year-old playing in Kamloops. I was surprised because of Edmonton's depth at the position but as GM Bob Green told me afterwards... you can never have enough goalie depth.

Ashton Saunter was Edmonton's 8th round pick, a defenceman from small town Saskatchewan. He's of average size but he had more than a point per game for Weyburn this past season.

In Round 9 the Oil Kings added Bowen Croft to their organization. He's a 5'10 forward that had 40 points in 32 games this past year with Sherwood Park. I happened to be out of the room when this pick was made and neglected to ask Bob Green about the player... as you'll notice when you listen to his post-draft comments.

Edmonton ended their participation in the days events with back-to-back picks in round 10. The first pick was thier own and they chose Anthony Borri of the Coquitlam Chiefs. Interestingly enough, the Prince Albert Raiders offered their 10th pick to Edmonton "for a Heineken". The Raiders were done for the day and in the end the Oil Kings took the pick with an agreement to swap their 10th rounders in 2010.

With P.A.'s 10th round bullet Edmonton grabbed AJHL forward Darren Kramer, a tough guy who racked up 221 PIM in 38 regular season games with the Grande Prairie Storm. This sounds like a player that fans are going to get to see next year and are going to get to like. He's going to be riding shot gun protecting the small skilled guys like Michael St. Croix and Dylan Wruck.

As I mentioned, I spoke with GM Bob Green after the draft and got a breakdown of each player they selected (except Croft). You can hear those Bob Green comments HERE.

Wednesday Re-Set

Last night on The Pipeline Show...

We began the program with a bang. Matt Gilroy is a 24-year-old senior with the Boston University Terriers and is being followed by NHL scouts who want to get his under contract next month much the same way Fabian Brunnstrom was pursued this time last year.

Gilroy's story is extremely interesting including chapters that could be called "Why I Turned Down the NHL", "No scholarship, no problem!" and "Tribute to Lost Brother". Last night Gilroy talked about it all but we still had time to talk about the NCAA national Tournament and winning the Hockey East title too.

From there we couldn't connect with Dave Starman so Dean and I decided to go through our respective NCAA Hockey National Tournament brackets. We'll post them here before the tournament starts on Friday just so we have documented proof of our prognosticating prowess.

It was then time for another monthly installment of the ISS Draft Countdown where head scout Mike Oke joins us to discuss the newest release from Internation Scouting Services. Last night we discussed teamless Kyle Palmieri, The World U18s, Cape Breton netminder Olivier Roy, Zach Kassian (pictured) of the Peterborough Petes and Brandon forward Scott Glennie.

We also chatted with Edmonton Oil Kings GM Bob Green. We talked about the team's plight in their series against the mighty Calgary Hitmen, got updates on some key injuries and discussed the stellar play of netminder Torrie Jung and if there was optimism he may return as a 20-year-old. Green also gave us some insight into the WHL's Bantam draft which will be held in Edmonton for the next several years.

Finally we ran some exclusive interviews with a handful of Hitmen including 50-goal scorer Joel Broda, defencemen Paul Postma and Alex Plante as well as 100-point man Brett Sonne.

If you missed it live, you can click the archive... HERE!

No Deal!

The WHL trade deadline has come and gone and while there were a smattering of deals today, the Edmonton Oil Kings opted to stand pat and not get involved with the transactions list.

I had an email exchange last night with a prominent WHL media person who suggested to me that he'd heard of one potential deal that was being talked about. I won't mention his name here just in case he'd prefer I didn't, but he'd heard rumors that the Oil Kings and Saskatoon were kicking tires in a trade that would have involed 20-year-old forward Brenden Dowd heading to the Blades in exchange for 18-year-old Travis Toomey.

I had talked earlier in the week to Edmonton Assistant GM Randy Hansch and he suggested that the team was open to possibilities that would make the team better in the present and in the long term. He was pretty insistent that the team wasn't going to move any youth though just for the sake of getting a deal done.

Moving an overager like Dowd would have made sense, even though it would have been a blow to their offence. He can't come back... the team isn't a contender this year... getting something for Dowd at this point does make some sense. However, Dowd does share the team lead in goals this year (15) and is currently fourth in scoring. If the Oil Kings want to make a serious run to simply make the playoffs (forget beyond that) then you probably can't move that player.

I can understand the attraction that Travis Toomey would of had for Bob Green and his staff. Toomey hails from the Edmonton bedroom community of Leduc making him a hometwon product. He's also a gargantuan 6'5 and 200 lbs and if there is one thing the Oil Kings lack it's size - especially up front.

Toomey's only played 21 games this year after missing all of November and December due to injury (I don't recall what the injury was... I'm sure someone can leave it in the comments). He's back playing now though.

In the end, neither Edmonton nor Saskatoon made a deal before the deadline.

The Kootenay Ice made an interesting move today by basically pulling the chute on their season. They dealt their top defenceman in John Negrin (CGY) and a decent forward in Michael Stickland to Swift Current. The Broncos made a bucket load of trades as they try to imprive for the stretch drive.

I'm a bit suprised about what the Ice did simply because they're currently tied for 6th place. Now, I just finished saying that I'd have given a thumbs up to Edmonton moving Dowd but I'm still surprised that Negrin was deemed expendable by Kootenay during the playoff stretch. Perhaps they're simply looking at the top teams in the Conference and deciding that this isn't going to be this year so better to start reloading now. There is some logic in that too but the Ice haven't missed the playoffs since moving to Kootenay and that seems like a harder streak to keep going without Negrin that with.

That might just be me.

The dash to the playoffs can now begin in full force now. It looks like 5 teams vying for 3 spots in the Eastern Conference to me. How about you?

UPDATE: I spoke with GM Bob Green a couple of hours ago. He did confirm that he'd talked to several teams ove rthe last few days but that those discussions didn't progress much at all. When asked about the trade scenario I outlined above he literally laughed. I aksed him he'd had discussions with Saskatoon in regards to Dowd and Toomey and he replied by saying "No... but that's a good one!"

The Oil Kings have loaned netminder Dalyn Flette to the Camrose Kodiaks. The 19-year-old will get the opportunity to play for Boris Rybalka's club as it tries to solidy a playoff spot in the AJHL's Southern Conference.

Oil Kings Go For Jung-ular

OK so it's not the best headline ever but it seemed better than my second choice: Dalyn Flette Takes One in the Jung-k!

For the second time in a week, 19-year-old netminder Torrie Jung has been dealt. First it was from the Kelowna Rockets to the Lethbridge Hurricanes for a 6th round pick in 2010 and now today to the Edmonton Oil Kings for the exact same thing. Official details on the trade can be found here.

I mentioned very recently that I thought the Oil Kings needed to upgrade their goaltending ASAP if they wanted to stay in contention for a playoff spot. In conversation with Millard yesterday, he agreed as long as doing so didn't cost the team a chunk of it's future - like a roster player.

Well The Pipeline Show officially gives this deal two thumbs up because GM Bob Green has addressed the biggest flaw on his roster and has done so without sacraficing anything for the future.

The interesting part now will be to see what the team does with Flette who apparently is out with a foot injury (see update below)... but might now be the 4th best goalie on the team behind Jung, 16-year-old Cam Lanigan and equipment manager Rogan Dean. Millard and I both figure that Flette will end up getting released but he's checking that theory out with GM Green later today.

As for Jung, his career stats aren't exactly earth shattering despite being on a pretty strong Rockets team last year. In two seasons he hasn't had a save percentage over .896 and his best goals against average came last year with a 2.80 in 33 appearances.

Still, it simply has to be a step up from the status quo and that's all you can ask from a GM is to make improvements. Jung was a 7th round pick by the Tampa Bay Lightning in 2007 so at least one NHL franchise believes he has some potential.

I haven't heard if Jung will play tonight against Vancouver but I wouldn't be surprised to hear that play-by-play voice A.J. Jakubec would be willing to drive to and from Lethbridge himself if it would help. The Oil Kings have allowed 5 or more goals in 7 consecutive games (6 or more in the last 3)... and that's got to have been painful on the broadcast crew.

The Giants have had their way with the Oil Kings in their only meeting last year, a 7-0 wedgie which was broadcast on Shaw TV... as is tonight's affair. You can watch the game or hear the terrific play call of Jakubec and Kent Simpson on the TEAM 1260 starting with a pre-game show at 6:30.

Update: Millard had a chance to speak with GM Bob Green a little while ago... Dalyn Flette is expected to be out for about a month with an ankle injury. He's had a MRI done, surgery has not yet been decided on. Cam Lanigan will play in goal tonight for the Oil Kings.

WHL Overagers

Alan Caldwell has done a terrific job of breaking down the overage situations for every WHL team and the choices they have to face coming into the 2008-09 season. (See his work here.)

There are a couple of things worth noting in regards to the Edmonton Oilers and the Oil Kings.

First, Caldwell speculates that new Oiler defenceman Jordan Bendfeld will return to the Medicine Hat Tigers next season although my Oiler sources have all been telling me otherwise. Since the draft the organization has been talking about the contribution to Springfield (AHL) they think Bendfeld can make, especially in the toughness department.

However, the roster in Springfield was bulging before the addition of Jake Taylor so maybe there isn't room for Bendfeld now. The argument then becomes 'what's better for Bendfeld - the ECHL or the WHL?'

The other thing to consider is contract negotiations. I haven't asked but perhaps talks are going no where which would put Bendfeld back in a Tigers uniform by default. Pure specualtion.

Now for the Oil Kings... and what a situation GM Bob Green is going to find himself in. From Caldwell's report:

Edmonton Oil Kings: Cameron Cepek (D), Brenden Dowd (F), Robin Figren (F), Jeff Lee (F), Brandon Lockerby (D), J-P Szaszkiewicz (F)

Figren is gone pro. The other five should be back; I'm thinking I'd keep Cepek, Dowd, and Szaszkiewicz if I were them but on the other hand, the Oil King blueline is so horrible looking for next year that they might need to keep Lockerby too just to have another veteran guy.

I was not a fan of Cameron Cepek last year; I didn't travel with the team so I didn't see the road games but at Rexall, most nights I thought he was somewhere between average to awful. But, as Caldwell says, the Oil Kings defence is still rather lacking so they might need him back.

Brenden Dowd, while hot and cold, I thought was one of Edmonton's better players; I bring him back. Szaszkiewicz (or 'Jips' to coach Steve Pleau) is a local product and helped out on the ice during the spring prospect camp. I find it hard to imagine he won't be around as he's surely a favorite for the coach (both were in Spokane before the expansion to Edmonton). But he is a depth player.

It gets interesting with Jeff Lee though. Here's a guy they talked out of the NCAA to come and play for them. Edmonton needed a big forward and Lee wasn't playing much for his NCAA prgram in Alaska. However, if he loses his WHL job, he can't go back to the NCAA and for some reason I have a hard time seeing Bob Green doing that to a kid he recently wooed to his team.

Green is very conscious of how the Oil Kings are viewed by agents, players and parents. Last year the team had a verbal agreement with Robin Figren that they wouldn't trade him at the deadline and, despite a really nice offer from Regina, Green kept his word and let the Swede decide if he'd take the trade or not. Figren stayed and spoke publicly about the class and honor that Green and the WHL organization had shown him.

Yet they'll cut Jeff Lee? Maybe, he's certainly not the same sort of impact player that Figren was but it still doesn't seem right. Edmonton does have some incoming youth, especially up front, that could have an impact in helping Green make his decision.

It'll be interesting.

Caldwell also mentions that Kootenay might opt to dump goalie Kris Lazaruk and go with a youth movement. (Lazaruk is the goalie in the photo making the save on J.P. Szaszkiewicz).

Right now it looks like Edmonton will have Dalyn Flette and one of a couple youngsters vying for the back up spot. Flette didn't exactly light the world on fire last year and while the future for the Oil Kings looks fantastic (see Laurent Brossoit and Cam Lanigan) Green might have an interest in a guy like Lazaruk for one more year.

One more thing: Caldwell conveniently lists all the prospects for each WHL team on his site as well. You'll find the links at the top left on his site. Extremely handy for those of us who care about such things. 'Small Thoughts At large' is recommended reading and we've had it listed under Pipeline Pals for some time now.