Giants, Blazers missing key players
Vancouver to play without two defencemen while Kamloops missing goaltender
The Vancouver Giants and Kamloops Blazers will offer up some ideas this weekend on the age-old question of whether a top defenceman is of greater value to a team than a No. 1 goalie or vice versa.
The Giants will be missing overage rearguard Darian Skeoch to suspension and 16-year-old rookie phenom blueliner Bowen Byram to the Under-17 World Challenge tournament for both ends of a home-andhome set against the Blazers. Kamloops, meanwhile, is expected to be without starting netminder Dylan Ferguson on Friday (7:30 p.m., TSN 1040) at the Langley Events Centre and Saturday (7 p.m., TSN 1410) at the Sandman Centre after he was an emergency call-up due to injury this week by the Las Vegas Golden Knights.
If Vancouver (5-7-1-2) is going to make the WHL playoffs for the first time in four years this spring, Kamloops (4-11-0-0) is one of the teams they’ll have to beat out.
Ferguson, 19, was a seventh-round pick of the Dallas Stars in June’s NHL draft, but had his rights traded to Las Vegas in a deal for defenceman Marc Methot soon after. Ferguson signed his three-year, entry-level deal with the Golden Knights in September.
He became the fifth goalie to suit up for Vegas this NHL season when he backed up Maxime Lagace on Tuesday against the New York Rangers. Oscar Dansk (lower body, out definitely), Malcolm Subban (lower body, mid-November) and Marc-Andre Fleury (concussion, mid-November) are all sidelined.
Rookie Max Palaga, 17, is expected to start both games for the Blazers. He’s 0-2-0-0, with a 3.89 goals against and a .853 save percentage so far this season. Dylan Garand, 15, a third-round pick from last May’s WHL bantam draft, has been called up by the Blazers to fill Ferguson’s roster spot. He plays for the Delta Hockey Academy midget prep team.
Skeoch received a four-game suspension from the WHL head office for his open-ice check on Prince George Cougars forward Jackson Leppard in the third period of Prince George’s 2-1 win at the LEC last Friday.
No penalty was called on the play. Leppard is listed as sidelined dayto-day with an upper body injury by the Cougars. Skeoch sat out Vancouver’s road games against the Victoria Royals Saturday and Sunday.
Byram is expected to miss five game at the Under-17 event, which is in Fort St. John and Dawson Creek.
Skeoch and Byram are normally paired together with Vancouver. General manager Glen Hanlon balked at calling them the Giants’ top two rearguards, saying undervalued veterans Matt Barberis, 19, and Dylan Plouffe, 18, have also been solid this season, but he did agree Skeoch and Byram likely lead the Vancouver defenders in minutes played.
The WHL doesn’t keep track of such statistics.
Plouffe (three goals, eight assists) and Barberis (two goals, eight assists) are Vancouver’s top-two scoring rearguards. Barberis has the team’s second-best plus-minus rating, his plus-seven trailing only the plus-eight by winger Ty Ronning.
Plouffe and Barberis will obviously see increased responsibilities with Skeoch and Byram away. With Bailey Dhaliwal (upper body) also missing this weekend, the team has filled out its six-man defence unit by calling up Parker Hendren, 16, a seventh-round pick in the 2016 bantam draft, from the Regina Pat Canadians midget team.
Hendren, a 5-foot-11, 180-pound right-handed shot, was paired frequently last year on the Pat Canadians with Vancouver rookie blueliner Alex Kannok Leipert, 17. It will be interesting to see if the Giants reunite them as a combination at times this weekend.