Blazers star plays waiting game
This is Logan Stankoven's NHL draft season and he's been eagerly anticipating it for some time. He still has more waiting to do, of course.
Stankoven is a skilled 17-year-old forward with the Kamloops Blazers, his hometown WHL team. The major junior league hasn't played a game yet this season, left in a holding pattern due to COVID-19.
The NHL Central Scouting players-to-watch list pegged Stankoven as a possible secondor third-round pick for the 2021 NHL draft slated for July. Various scouting services rank him higher. For instance, Dobber Prospects have him at No. 21 overall, Future Considerations slots him at No. 27.
The WHL shut down its 201920 campaign last March due to the pandemic, leaving the Blazers five games shy of their planned regular-season schedule and Stankoven likely from becoming the first 16-year-old to score 30 goals in a season in the league since Brandon's Nolan Patrick did it in 201415. Stankoven wound up with 29 goals in 59 games, to go with 48 points.
Stankoven says the idea that he had a chance to be an early pick in 2021 clicked for him in his 2017-18 bantam season, when he was scoring 57 goals in 30 games for Yale Academy. He was selected No. 5 overall by the Blazers in the WHL bantam draft that spring.
He, like so many of us, is trying to find the right mindset to deal with what the pandemic brings.
“You just have to try to take advantage of this longer off-season. I'm working in the gym and working on the ice, and trying to find ways to get better,” explained Stankoven, a five-foot-eight, 170-pound, right-handed shot. “I've been working on my foot speed. I know that was one of the things that needed to be worked on. My skills and my fitness are the best they've been. When we're told the league is ready to go, I'll be ready.”
The WHL was slated to begin its regular season Oct. 2 and then Dec. 4, 2020, and finally on Jan. 8. They stepped back from that last opening night on Dec. 15, saying that the board of governors would decide in early January when the league would resume.
The governors are slated to meet today. It's unclear whether they'll finalize a start date today, but the roster deadline for the U.S. Hockey League is Sunday, and there's fear about losing players to that Junior A loop, which has kept playing its regular season despite the pandemic.
The Dubuque Fighting Saints announced Tuesday that they had signed Winnipeg Ice forward Matt Savoie, 17, for the rest of the season. The B.C. Hockey League, which is a Junior A league like the USHL, has lost several players to that circuit.
The BCHL has yet to begin its regular season as well.
Players haven't traditionally been allowed to move back and forth between leagues after that Jan. 10 deadline. Whether the various powers that be could agree on the fly to special exemptions to be put into effect in COVID-19 times is anyone's guess.
The BCHL had started an exhibition season, but it was shut down due to health orders from provincial officer Dr. Bonnie Henry that didn't permit games between rival teams or travel for sports. On Thursday, those health orders were extended to Feb. 5.