Giants have had mixed results when losing a player early to the NHL
Steve Ewen examines a list of Giants who made the big league as teenagers and how things played out for Vancouver after they left.
GILBERT BRULE (18), 2005-06
The Columbus Blue Jackets used the sixth overall selection in the draft on the centre that summer and opted to keep him to start the regular season.
Brule played just seven games with Columbus, due to a cracked sternum and a broken leg, and was returned to Vancouver in January.
The Giants, who were supposed to be building for their Memorial Cup season the following year, came together a season early and were an impressive 29-12-0-4 when Brule arrived.
He made that team even more dangerous offensively, producing 38 points, including 23 goals, in 27 regular season games followed by 30 points, including 16 goals, in their 16-2 run to the WHL playoff crown. He led the Memorial Cup national championship tournament in points (12) that spring.
BRULE (19), 2006-07
The Blue Jackets kept Brule off the top again, but this time stayed in the NHL and played 78 games. Vancouver, the Memorial Cup hosts, had the league’s fourth-best regular season record and lost to the Medicine Hat Tigers in the championship series. They would go on to beat the Tigers 3-1 in the Memorial Cup title matchup on Pacific Coliseum ice.
MILAN LUCIC (19), 2007-08
The power forward, a second-round pick of the Boston Bruins in 2006, turned heads with how dominant he was in Vancouver’s Memorial Cup run and stuck with the Bruins the following campaign.
The Giants had an idea it was happening early on, going off the fact that coach Don Hay, who had picked Lucic as the team captain over the summer, named Spencer Machacek as his replacement for the ‘C’ that October. Vancouver finished with more regular season points than they had in 2006-07. They lost in six games in the second round to the eventual Memorial Cup champion Spokane Chiefs.
EVANDER KANE (18), 2009-10
Kane was the fourth pick overall by the Atlanta Thrashers that summer and they opted to make him the youngest full-time player in the NHL that season. The top four, and five of the first nine selections, from the 2009 draft ended up being regulars that season.
Kane’s 14 goals in 66 games made him the sixth-highest goal scorer on that Thrashers team, who finished only five points out of a playoff spot.
JAMES WRIGHT (19), 2009-10
Wright, a Tampa Bay Lightning fourth rounder in 2008, had a flight scheduled to return to Vancouver from Lightning training camp in time for the Giants’ regular season opener initially, but Tampa brass kept pushing it back and pushing it back. He would return after 48 games with the Lightning.
Vancouver, who had lost top scorer Casey Pierro-Zabotel to graduation and top defenceman Jon Blum to a 20-year-old season in the minors as well as Kane, dropped 31 points in the regular season, going from 57-10-2-3 in 2008-09 to 41-25-3-3. They did make it to the third round of the playoffs for a second straight year, this time losing to the Tri-City Americans in six games.
KANE (19), 2010-11
Kane was one of the 12 teenage NHL regulars that season and this time had 19 goals for Atlanta. Vancouver lost another 13 points in league play, this time falling to 35-32-1-4, and were swept in the first round by Tri-City.