Tigers add to organization depth with balanced draft
Luke Ruptash was watching with excitement alongside Medicine Hat Tigers fans as the organization made a plethora of trades.
The Tigers’ first-round, 16th overall pick in Thursday’s WHL Prospects Draft was already excited to join Medicine Hat with their three trade acquisitions only adding to the excitement of the day.
“I was watching the draft at home and then I heard my phone go buzzing off and then two seconds later, I hear my name being called, so it was pretty special,” Ruptash said.
“I think (the trades) will be good for the team and we’ll see how it goes from there.”
The Tigers drafted the 5-foot-10 Ruptash from the St. Albert U15AA Sabres of the Alberta Elite Hockey League.
The St. Albert product is a player head coach and general manager Willie Desjardins says has everything a team would want.
“He’s a guy who can play up your lineup, first- or secondline guy, just a guy that’ll fit in,” Ruptash said. “We look at down the road and probably next year we’re going to lose some forwards. So we’re going to look for somebody to fill those spots and he’s the guy that we would be looking to fill one of those spots.”
The 15-year-old had 28 goals and 57 points in 29 regular season games for the Sabres. He added four goals and eight points in four playoff games and four goals and five points in five provincials games. Looking at his own game, Ruptash says he profiles as a power forward.
“(Someone) who can bring the physical aspect of the game and I think I have a good skill set, too,” Ruptash said. “I can shoot the puck hard, I have a good set of hands and I think I can beat guys one on one.”
He’s already looking forward to rookie camp at the end of May and taking part in training camp come fall. Ruptash not only heard from
Desjardins on draft day but received a message from Tigers rookie Gavin McKenna who he’s excited to play alongside sooner than later.
“He actually shot me a text and it was kind of unbelievable seeing him on my phone, too, congratulating me, that’s really special to me,” Ruptash said. “They’re looking really good. They’re a young team, which will be good to see how they come in the next couple of years.”
Ruptash was one of nine players in the Tigers’ 2024 WHL Draft class, he was one of four forwards alongside Noah Alexander (105th), Tayte Hoiland (181st) and Devon Zahara (215th). Medicine Hat drafted one goalie in Cash Christie (83rd) and three defencemen in Zack Nieckar (97th), Jude Martin (149th) and Kingston King (193rd).
“We just looked for guys that can compete and we have guys who can compete,” Desjardins said. “We rank every player in intelligence, compete, skating, want — lots of different things we go through and all the guys we took today are guys we wanted.”
The Tigers’ draft process took a backseat to their trade moves with the acquisitions of two 18-year-old defencemen, Jonas Woo from the Wenatchee Wild and Bryce Pickford from the Seattle Thunderbirds, and 20-year-old forward Mat Ward from the Swift Current Broncos.
Going the other way, the
Tigers sent a 2025 third-round pick and 19-year-old defenceman Reid Andresen to Wenatchee, and also traded soon to be 20-year-old captain Tyler MacKenzie to the Everett Silvertips for the 64th overall pick in Thursday’s draft that then flipped to Seattle alongside a 2025 2nd, 2025 3rd round pick and a conditional 2027 5th round pick.
They traded the 42nd pick in this draft, a 2027 3rd and a 2028 4th to the Broncos for Ward.
The WHL draft wraps up the 2023-24 season for the Tigers, with the next stage on their calendar being rookie camp in late May before expectations and excitement ramp back up with training camp in the fall.
At the end of the long day after countless phone calls, trades and draft picks, Desjardins reflected on their season as a whole and provided his outlook for what lays ahead for the Tabbies.
“I’d really like to thank Brent and Darrell (Maser), it’s great we’re taking the step to try to go get things again rather than maybe wait,” Desjardins said. “It’s great they’re on board and they want us to go after it again. Right now we’re certainly farther ahead than I thought would ever be at this point.
“The play last year was certainly encouraging and I think the people we brought in here are great for sure. We’re going to miss (MacKenzie and Andresen), like we’ll really miss the two guys, but I’m really excited about the group we’ve got coming in.”