Blades play it safe with U.S. draft pick

Club takes forward Frieden with 19th overall selection

The Saskatoon Blades hedged their bets in Wednesday's Western Hockey League U.S. Priority Draft.

They went for a safe pick — a sure thing, relatively speaking — with their first-round selection before gambling with a high-risk, high-reward second choice.

With the 19th pick overall, the Blades selected 5-foot-8 forward Trace Frieden, a native of Los Angeles, Calif., who played for St. George's School under-15 prep team in Vancouver, B.C. this past season.

“He doesn't have great size right now, but he's going to — he's got size in the family and we project him to grow significantly,” noted Blades director of scouting Dan Tencer. “He's a player I spent a lot of time talking about with Todd Harkins, who's the head of hockey at St. George's and he was a GM and scout in our league for many, many years. Todd's a big fan of that player.

“He's very competitive. He's got some skill, but he's got elite compete. He plays with a little grease and a little truculence in his game and we like how he plays. As he continues to develop, he's got some really intriguing upside, and obviously, playing in Western Canada already, he's open to doing that.”

At No. 26, the Blades chose hulking 6-foot-2, 191-pound forward William Belle from the Shattuck St. Mary's Sabres under-15 squad in Minnesota.

“He's a player I had a chance to watch when I travelled to Chicago to U.S. Hockey nationals,” said Tencer. “He's one of the most impactful forwards for the academy at Shattuck-st. Mary's. He's a lot closer to a finished product already.

“There's not a lot of (future) projection with him. He's a massive body who plays an incredibly hard game. If you sort of want to picture a Zach Hyman type with the Oilers right now, that's sort of what you're getting with William. He's got skill, but he's got incredible puck protection. He's very physical, with a physical style of play. He loves to finish checks and can create a lot of space on the ice for himself and his teammates.

“Obviously with him being a Minnesota kid and Shattuck-st. Mary's kid, we'll say that it's a more significant recruiting battle for us. Those guys are hard to get, but we felt really comfortable with Trace as our first pick and we thought that, at that point with our second pick, we just took the best player available on our board.

“We'll see how that goes. That's a guy who I would say is extremely likely to be a high NHL pick one day, and when guys get drafted into pro, who knows where those teams want them to play. I think that's sort of a longer-term outlook type pick with him.”

Overall, Tencer called the U.S. talent pool quite good this year.

“There were a lot of players that got selected that are of high quality,” he said.

“I think, in general, it was a reasonably deep year there.”