Personnel changes, trades paying off for Rockets GM
GM makes all the right moves to improve roster for playoff run
The most important part of the season is still playing out but, so far, everything Bruce Hamilton has touched has turned to gold.
Going back to last year when he parted ways with Brad Ralph and then made the off-the-radar hire of former NHL captain Jason Smith as head coach, Hamilton has been putting all the pieces in place for the Rockets to go on another long playoff run and possibly win the franchise’s fifth league championship.
Those pieces have been fitting perfectly — a handful of trade acquisitions are also playing prominent roles — in helping Kelowna to its fifth straight 45-win season despite a slow start and playing in the ultra-competitive B.C. Division.
Hamilton’s efforts in making that a reality haven’t gone unnoticed. He was recently named the Western Conference’s nominee for the Lloyd Saunders Memorial Trophy as the WHL’s executive of the year — up against Regina’s John Paddock, who was also busy wheeling and dealing to turn his team into a powerhouse and the regular-season champion.
“The awards are the awards, but the most important thing to me is that our hockey club is in a better place,” said Hamilton, the Rockets’ general manager, who was quick to share the accolade with assistant GM Lorne Frey and their support staff. “Generally, everything we do, we do as a group here. I knew early on that there were some personnel changes that we needed to make. Between Lorne and myself, and the coaches to a certain degree, we made some adjustments with what we had and it’s worked out well.”
Hamilton has made a total of eight trades since August — that’s a lot by junior-hockey standards — and the vast majority have favoured Kelowna in hindsight, or at least been win-win deals.
Hamilton’s work is done now, and all he can do is watch the fruits of his labour in this first-round playoff series against the rival Kamloops Blazers — a best-of-seven that the Rockets are leading 2-0 after scoring a dominant 4-0 win on Friday and a narrow 3-2 victory on Saturday.
Games 3 and 4 are in Kamloops on Tuesday and Wednesday. If necessary, Game 5 would be back here at Prospera Place on Friday. Every game starts at 7 p.m. and will be broadcast on Shaw TV.
The Rockets appear well equipped to beat the Blazers and basically any opponent, though there is plenty of parity in the league this season and getting out of the B.C. Division bracket won’t be easy. If Kelowna gets past Kamloops, either Prince George, the division winner, or Portland, a wild-card team from the U.S. Division, would await in the second round.
From making that coaching change in the off-season to essentially going all-in at the trade deadline — with the additions of top-six forwards Reid Gardiner and Carsen Twarynski — Hamilton has built a team capable of going all the way again.
Gardiner has come as advertised, a ringer returning from the pro ranks who has proven to be a consistent offensive force with points in 27 of 30 games since joining Kelowna, including a 15-game streak. That was a surprising blockbuster by Hamilton, who traded Kelowna’s first-round pick in this year’s bantam draft to Prince Albert as part of a package for the shoot-first winger who developed instant chemistry with team MVP Calvin Thurkauf and Nick Merkley on the top line.
Hamilton had only moved his first-rounder once before in a quarter-century as the team’s GM, but that decision in 2015 put the Rockets over the top as Leon Draisaitl led Kelowna to a WHL title and the Memorial Cup final while being named most valuable player of both the playoffs and the national championship tournament.
“(Reid’s) another guy where the playoffs are going to kind of define his year, and set up his opportunities going forward,” Hamilton said of Gardiner, who spent the first half of this season playing for Pittsburgh’s farm team, the AHL’s Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins.
“He’s going to be very motivated to play real well,” Hamilton continued. “As is Twarynski, because he’s fighting for a contract (as a Philadelphia draft pick). I’m looking forward to seeing what they bring.”
Twarynski came to Kelowna from Calgary at the Jan. 10 deadline in a 1-for-1 swap for Jake Kryski, with Hamilton turning a perimeter player into a power forward.
Twarynski took a while to hit his stride with the Rockets but has found a home on the second line with Dillon Dube and Tomas Soustal, who returned from injury to replace leading scorer Kole Lind on right wing for the start of the playoffs.
“Our coaches really like (Twarynski). Myself, I want to see more big-body play out of him,” Hamilton said. “This is the time of year that we got him for, right now. And when we made the deal, one of the things a lot of general managers said is ‘this is what you need in the playoffs, a guy like this.’
“I think we’re going to see his best games still ahead of us here,” Hamilton surmised prior to Friday’s series opener that saw Twarynski emerge as the first star with two goals in a three-point performance.
Kryski didn’t necessarily pan out in Kelowna — acquired from Kamloops for the Gatenby brothers, defencemen Joe and Danny, prior to training camp — but Hamilton managed to right that wrong by flipping Kryski for Twarynski.
Not that Kryski was a bad player for Kelowna — he had three more goals and eight more points than Twarynski at the time of the trade, and finished the season with three more goals (20-17) and 46 points to Twarynski’s 43 — but the fit just wasn’t what Hamilton envisioned.
“I needed a player that could bring us some size and some bite, and (Twarynski) has certainly done that,” Hamilton said.
Hamilton’s hand was forced in a couple transactions, with Joe Gatenby and Jonathan Smart — both blueliners and local products — seeking more power-play time and offensive opportunities that weren’t available in Kelowna behind Cal Foote and Lucas Johansen.
“They wanted bigger roles and, in the end, we accommodated them,” Hamilton said. “With Joe, that was a tough trade for us to make because he was a good player and would have fit right into our team, but he wanted to have a role that we weren’t guaranteeing. Everything is earned here and he knows that, and he’s gone on and had a great year there (in Kamloops).
“Smart is in a good situation with a great team (in Regina) too, and it’s worked out for everybody,” Hamilton added.
Indeed, with Gatenby becoming the Blazers’ top defenceman this season — leading them in scoring from the back end with 38 points — after winning the same award for the Rockets last year. Foote earned that honour this season, leading Kelowna with 57 points in his NHL draft year.
Smart, also draft eligible, produced 21 points in 43 games for Regina (0.5 points per game) after only contributing seven points in 24 games (0.3) to start the season with Kelowna.
In exchange for Smart, the Rockets landed defender James Hilsendager — projected as more of a stay-at-home type — and forward prospect Erik Gardiner, the younger brother of Reid. That deal went down at the end of November and played a factor in luring the elder Gardiner to the Okanagan in January, though Hamilton insists that was a coincidence and not part of his master plan at the time.
Even if the trades weren’t connected, the stars aligned for the Rockets.
Erik Gardiner joined Kelowna on a pre-Christmas road trip in Alberta and was immediately productive in making Jordan Borstmayer expendable (to Vancouver), while Riley Stadel (to Edmonton) was the casualty upon Reid’s arrival as an over-ager.
Hilsendager and Erik Gardiner both celebrated birthdays this past week, turning 20 and 18, respectively.
Erik Gardiner may have been the primary target in that trade — selected just 13 spots after Smart, in the second round of the 2014 bantam draft — but Hilsendager proved to be a pleasant surprise for Kelowna.
Hilsendager has actually put up better offensive numbers for the Rockets than Smart has for the Pats, scoring six goals to Smart’s two and 24 points to Smart’s 21 since the trade, albeit in three more games.
“I had to make a deal to get Hilsendager after we lost (Gordie) Ballhorn to the hand injury, and I’m not so sure that’s the deal I would’ve made with Smart had we not needed a defenceman like that right then,” Hamilton said, “but that worked out good too. (Hilsendager’s) been excellent, exactly what we hoped for. He’s done everything we’ve asked him to do.
“Reid Gardiner and Erik have been real good people to add to our team as well.”
Smith might still be the biggest addition of all, even if that off-ice move didn’t weigh into Hamilton’s nomination for the executive award.
“We had a pretty good foundation here, but these players were going through their third head coach in three years, so there is the instability of that,” said Hamilton, adding key players attending pro camps also contributed to Kelowna’s 3-7 start. “Jason, once he settled in . . . it’s a feeling-out process there because he’s got to have their confidence and earn their respect too, and he has.
“The coaches all put in long days to get this team to where it is, and it’s not an easy job.”
Everybody will ultimately be judged by their playoff performance and the team’s results going forward, but Hamilton has given his club the best possible chance at success by icing the best possible roster on paper.
“We’ve got some guys who have come from teams that haven’t had a lot of success, so our base group of (captain Rodney Southam) and crew are going to be real important for the success of our team,” Hamilton concluded.
ICE CHIPS: The Rockets have also got decent mileage out of Leif Mattson, a fourth-liner acquired from Brandon for a late-round pick, while Tanner Wishnowski, who ended up in Prince George at the deadline, was traded from Kelowna to Spokane for another forward prospect, Colum McGauley. Both those moves were made in October, within the first month of the season . . . . Hamilton also traded up to select Kaedan Korczak at 11th overall in last May’s bantam draft, and the 16-year-old defenceman from Yorkton, Sask., dominated the midget level before recently joining the Rockets for their playoff run.