It’s that time of year when Alan Caldwell at Small Thoughts At Large does his posting of each WHL team’s prospects. Caldwell has access to the 50-player protected lists that I do not, so when he posts Everett’s prospects, as he did today, there’s always several new names, as well as several old names gone.
Given Everett went through a change in general managers in February, I figured I’d find more changes than usual this year. While there’s certainly a fair amount of turnover since last training camp, the changes aren’t quite as drastic as I thought they might be.
Let’s begin with the new names who weren’t acquired in trades or the recent bantam draft (listed with position and age for 2012-13):
Justin Baudry, D, 16
Carter Cochrane, D, 16
Luke Johnson, C 18
Taylor Sanheim, LW, 16
Tomas Sholl, G, 18
Lucas Skrumeda, D, 16
Jacob Slavin, D, 18
Jan Tesarek, C, 17
Daniel Urbani, G, 17
Johnson (North Dakota), Sholl (Bowling Green) and Slavin (Colorado College) are all committed to NCAA schools for next season, so they are the standard list-and-hope types. Sometimes they become Josh Birkholz and eventually find themselves in a Silvertips uniform. Far more often they turn into Blake Wheeler, Kyle Okposo, Ryan McDonagh, etc., and never set foot in Everett. Slavin, by the way, was just selected in the fourth round of the NHL draft by the Carolina Hurricanes.
Cochrane and Urbani are names you might recognize. I’ve mentioned Cochrane briefly in the past when discussing Everett’s prospects who were taking part in Team B.C. camps, while Urbani attended Everett’s training camp last year.
Sanheim is an interesting prospect. His twin brother Travis was a ninth-round pick in the 2011 bantam draft by Calgary, but Taylor outscored him last season, putting up good numbers in the Manitoba AAA Midget Hockey League as a 15-year-old. He’s yet another intriguing skill player in Everett stable of 1996-bornn forwards.
Baudry and Skrumeda appear to be, like Cochrane, smaller puck-moving defensemen. Everett was a little lacking in the puck-moving defensemen department in its 1996 class, so it’s not surprising to see a few of those types added. Baudry, Skrumeda and Sanheim all were among the 34 Manitoba players invited to Team West’s summer camp for the U-17 World Hockey Challenge.
Tesarek is a mystery, even to Caldwell who has no stats on him.
As for the players who apparently have dropped off Everett’s list, the most notable are wingers Michael Bell and Michael Urbaniak. Both appeared in games for Everett last season as 16-year-olds, with Bell even making the team out of training camp, so it’s somewhat surprising to see them fall out of favor so quickly. However, both are big forwards who aren’t the greatest skaters, and Davidson has said the No. 1 thing he looks at in a player is skating ability, so perhaps the writing was on the wall. In Bell’s case we already know he was picked up by Seattle, so he’ll certainly be getting another chance at the WHL.
Bantam draft picks from 2010 and 2011 who were at training camp last year and are no longer on the list include forwards Kyle Messervey, Ryan Rensby and Maverick Rafter, defensemen Andrew Weich, Kyle MacDonald and Darien Head, and goaltender Casey Parker. Also no longer on the list are listed forward Nick Landry and listed defenseman Nigel Hoydalo.
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