Bonner and Giants make some noise
GM sends Vetterl to Kootenay for pair of prospects
Only a Scott Bonner Vancouver Giants team could trade their top defenceman on Wednesday and come up with something to rival that news by Thursday afternoon.
Not only did Bonner, the Vancouver general manager, deal away his second veteran in as many days Thursday when he moved centre Austin Vetterl, 18, to the Kootenay Ice for a pair of prospects, he confirmed that Junior B call-up goalie Payton Lee would be joining the team in his hometown of Cranbrook Friday. The Giants take on the Ice there Saturday.
Bonner already made a major shuffle with the WHL’s last-placed roster on Wednesday, when he dealt rearguard David Musil, 19, a 2011 second-round pick of the Edmonton Oilers and Czech world junior team candidate, to the Edmonton Oil Kings for fellow blueliner Mason Geertsen, 17, and a 2013 bantam first-round draft pick.
Geertsen was slated to make his Vancouver debut Thursday, with a Giants’ trip to the Medicine Hat Tigers. Vancouver was 4-10-0-0 going into that game.
Bonner wouldn’t commit to Lee starting Saturday in front of friends and family, but it’s hard to believe that they would go to such extent for him to sit on the bench or in the stands. Lee, 16, did get a pair of starts in front of regular netminders Liam Liston, 19, and Tyler Fuhr, 17, last week with Vancouver, going the distance in a 3-2 loss to the Brandon Wheat Kings and a 4-1 win over the Victoria Royals.
Going into Thursday, Lee (1-1, 2.02 goals against, .905 save percentage) had better numbers than either Liston (1-6, 4.45, .823) or Fuhr (2-3, 3.37, .846).
Bonner had said he wasn’t keen on Lee moving back and forth between the Giants and the PIJHL’s Richmond Sockeyes all season, and, there might be a point where they would call him up to stay. He wouldn’t comment on that Thursday, nor would Sockeyes general manager Richard Petrowsky.
The Sockeyes, for what it’s worth, are idle until next Thursday.
Meanwhile, Geertsen is a 6-foot-3, 204-pound stay-at-home defenceman projected to be a second or third-round pick in the upcoming NHL entry draft so far by Central Scouting.
Geertsen, who’s from Sherwood Park, Alta., was limited to 34 games last season, in large part because of a concussion, but he insists that he’s healthy now and he did suit up for all of Edmonton’s first 15 games while he was Oil King property. He had four assists and a minus-two rating, to go along with 32 minutes in penalties.
He’s had four fights this season, including scrapping with noted Medicine Hat tough guy Jacob Doty.
The Oil Kings picked him 18th overall in the 2010 bantam draft, one spot before Vancouver chose centre Anthony Ast.
You could argue that Vancouver receives two first-round picks for the one they gave up to the Kootenay Ice to land Musil’s rights prior to the 2009-10 season.
Geertsen was living at his family’s home while playing for the Oil Kings, so there’s a dramatic change for him coming to Vancouver, and he also leaves a team in the Oil Kings that looks poised for a long playoff run and joins a Vancouver club hoping to build for a bid at the 2016 Memorial Cup host spot.
He would be 20 that season, so he’d still be eligible to be in Vancouver, although it looks like he’s going to be a good enough player that he’d be suiting up in pro somewhere by that point.
Two players who will be 19 that season and could still be in Vancouver are centre Thomas Foster and winger Taylor Vickerman, both are 16-year-old rookies this time around. They should see more consistent ice time the rest of this season due to the Vetterl trade to the Ice for two Alberta Junior A league players, forward Douglas Morris, 17, and defenceman Kyle Krabben, 17.
Vetterl, 18, is a smooth skater who played largely a defensive role in Vancouver. He laced up his skates for 60 games as a rookie, scoring seven times and setting up 10 others. He had fallen out of favour this year, and had played in just seven of Vancouver’s first 14 games. He had two assists.