Tyler Maxwell: student extrordinaire

Published 12:35 pm Wednesday, March 18, 2009

This morning the WHL announced the Western Conference all-star teams and award nominees, and Everett left wing Tyler Maxwell was honored as the conference’s Scholastic Player of the Year. Maxwell was also Everett’s Scholastic Player of the Year, and I frequently hear about his exploits in drama class. He’ll go up against the Eastern Conference’s nominee for the league-wide honor

That was Everett’s only honoree, which isn’t a major surprise. The Tips didn’t really have a player worthy of all-star status. The only other award possibility was right wing Kellan Tochkin, who was a candidate for Rookie of the Year honors after leading the league in rookie scoring. But it’s hard to argue with Prince George’s Brett Connolly, who scored at a similar rate while being a year younger.

The all-star teams are:

FIRST TEAM

Goaltender — Chet Pickard, Tri-City

Defensemen — Jonathon Blum, Vancouver; Thomas Hickey, Seattle

Forwards — Casey Pierro-Zabotel, Vancouver; Jamie Benn, Kelowna; Evander Kane, Vancouver

SECOND TEAM

Goaltender — Dustin Tokarski, Spokane

Defensemen — Tyler Myers, Kelowna; Brent Regner, Vancouver

Forwards — Drayson Bowman, Spokane; Colin Long, Kelowna; Taylor Procyshen, Tri-City

By my reckoning this is spot on. Maybe the only argument that could be made is in goal, where Tokarski posted some ridiculous stats and played ahead of Pickard for the Canadian World Junior team. But he also had a much stronger defense in front of him than Pickard, so I can understand the reasoning.