Sniper Roman back with Giants; can he help end losing skid?
The suddenly sagging Vancouver Giants should get a boost tonight.
General manager Barclay Parneta says that first-line centre Milos Roman will return to the lineup for a visit to the Lethbridge Hurricanes (6 p.m., Sportsnet 650). Roman’s Slovakia team was eliminated from the 2019 World Junior Championships on Wednesday with an 8-3 loss to the Russians in the quarter-finals.
“I told him, ‘Milos, don’t you want to rest?’ and he said, ‘I’ll rest after,’ ” explained Parneta, whose Giants team has lost a season-high three straight games going into Lethbridge.
Roman, 19, a Calgary Flames draft pick, has missed the past six games with the Giants (23-11-2-0) due to World Junior commitments, but still has a Vancouver-best 16 goals. He is third on the team in points, his 29 trailing the 33 put forth by centre Davis Koch and 31 from defenceman Bowen Byram.
Vancouver did lose a player this week when recent 20-year-old pickup Jared Legien opted to return to the Yorkton Terriers of the Saskatchewan Junior A league after three-game trial with Vancouver. Parneta said it was an “amicable split,” and called Legien “a great kid.”
Legien, a winger who played last year in the WHL with the Victoria Royals and Regina Pats, had a goal and two assists in his debut with Vancouver against Red Deer last Sunday, but was held scoreless in his next two games.
WHL teams can play a maximum of three 20-year-olds in a game. Vancouver has a trio on their roster, but Matt Barberis, a defenceman, has been injured much of the year, playing in just nine games. He has missed the past 14 games with an undisclosed injury.
Considering the Legien trial, it wouldn’t be surprising to see Parneta bring in another 20-year-old before the WHL’s Jan. 10 trade deadline. If Barberis coming off the injured list gave them a fourth active 20-year-old, they would have seven days to make a decision on which three they would want to keep. Parneta likely would want all that rectified by the deadline, though.
The Everett Silvertips landed a marquee 20-year-old in a deal this week, obtaining 27-goal man Zack Andrusiak from the Seattle Thunderbirds in exchange for fellow overage forward Sean Richards, 16-year-old forward prospect Brendan Williamson, a 2019 second-round bantam pick, a 2021 third rounder, and a conditional 2022 fourth rounder.
Such a trade might be too rich for Parneta, who has said that he plans to add overall but isn’t looking to give up too much of Vancouver’s future. The Giants made the playoffs for the first time in four springs last year, losing out in seven games in the first round to the Royals. They are in the midst of their best season in likely a decade. With a group expected to be led by the likes of Byram, they should be strong as well next season.
Vancouver did make a trade Wednesday for 18-year-old defenceman Seth Bafaro, sending a 2021 fifth-round bantam to the Saskatoon Blades to complete the deal. Bafaro, a five-foot-11, 185pound right-handed shot, broke into the WHL with the Tri-City Americans, who used a 2015 third-round bantam pick on him. Parneta was the head scout and assistant general manager with Tri-City before coming to the Giants this summer.
In 27 games this season with Saskatoon, Bafaro had four goals, seven points, and a plus-three rating, to go with 12 penalty minutes.