Royals make major trades
Kaspick, Zablocki added for a credible run in the playoffs
The Victoria Royals have dispelled any doubts about being all in for this season.
The Western Hockey League trade deadline Wednesday was dramatic for the Royals as they added Brandon Wheat Kings captain Tanner Kaspick, signed to an NHL entry-level contract by the St. Louis Blues, and 2017 third-round Detroit Red Wings draft pick Lane Zablocki from the Lethbridge Hurricanes.
Kaspick, who has 11 goals and 37 points in 35 games this season for Brandon, represented the WHL in the CIBC Super Series against the Russians in November. The six-foot-one Kaspick was also a gold medallist for Canada in the 2016 Ivan Hlinka Memorial U-18 tournament in the Czech Republic. He turns 20 on Jan. 28 but is not considered an over-ager because of his early-in-the-year birthday.
Zablocki, who turned 19 on Dec. 27, had 11 goals and 25 points in 40 games this season split between the Hurricanes and Red Deer Rebels.
“Both these players tick every box you need for the playoffs,” said Royals general manager Cameron Hope.
The experienced forwards came with a cost, with much of it extracted from the future. The Royals sent their 2019 and 2021 first-round WHL bantam draft picks to the Wheat Kings for Kaspick, along with prospects Ty Thorpe and Jonathon Lambos.
Forward Cameron MacDonald also came to Victoria in the deal. The Royals gave up their secondand sixth-round bantam draft selections this year and a conditional pick in 2019 to the Hurricanes to acquire the six-foot Zablocki.
The Royals, however, compensated by restocking their bantam draft larder by sending their intriguing but underachieving 2015 first-round bantam pick Eric Florchuk to Saskatoon for the Blades’ first-round bantam selections in 2019 and 2021 and a fourth-rounder this year. The sophomore forward Florchuk, headed to the 2018 Top Prospects Game, has good style but disappointingly little production, with only 37 points in 94 career games with the Royals.
“You can’t look at this day by our trades individually. Instead, you have to look at them in their entirety,” Hope said. “We were able to strengthen this year’s team while retaining all our firstround bantam draft picks for the next five years.”
The Royals ended the day by sending utility forward Spencer Gerth to the Everett Silvertips in exchange for seventh-round bantam draft pick in 2019.
The Royals’ roster almost has been remade, in the period leading to the trade deadline, from the one that registered to start the season in September.
Gone are forwards Florchuk, Gerth, Jared Dmytriw, Jared Legien, Regan Nagy, Ryan Peckford and defenceman Jeremy Masella.
The trade-period Royals additions are forwards Kaspick, Zablocki, Jeff de Wit, Noah Gregor, Braydon Buziak, Andrei Grishakov, D-Jay Jerome and defenceman Kade Jensen.
It’s all part of what has been one of the heaviest trade-deadline periods in WHL history.
Case in point are the Kamloops Blazers, in town to play the Royals on Friday and Saturday at Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre. Kamloops has pretty much traded away this season to build for the future.