The Western Hockey League and the Prince Albert Raiders wrapped up the 2011 edition of the bantam draft on Thursday. On Thursday the Raiders selected six forwards, three defenseman and one goaltender. There is an excellent chance that two or three of the players selected will be Raiders at some point over the next four years. Like I mentioned in last week’s article, it’s far too early to declare a bantam draft a success or a failure until three or four years after the draft. We can still discuss the trends and types of players selected last Thursday.
One trend I noticed is that the Raiders drafted a lot of players with size. The Raiders only selected one player less than five foot ten inches (and there is still room to grow as the players are only 14 years old). One deficiency of the Raiders in this past season was that they were a smaller team up front and tended to get pushed around by bigger clubs. Bruno Campese and Dale Derkatch must have seen this weakness and addressed it by adding players that should reach six feet plus by the time they are 17 or 18. Also note that they didn’t select a defenseman until the 4th round. This proves that this draft has both a deeper pool of forwards and that the Raiders are very confident in the defenseman they selected in last season’s draft.
The selection of Reid Gardiner came as no surprise to anyone in the first round (biggest surprise is that he was available at #8). The Raiders were under some pressure to take a local player after the success the Prince Albert Venice House Pirates this season and the talent in the Prince Albert minor hockey program. The Raiders were able to select a Prince Albert born player that resides in Humboldt and the best player available. Nothing against the Pirates players Jordan Harris (taken #10 by Prince George) and Miles Warkentine (taken #16 by Moose Jaw) but at this point Gardiner was the best player available. The Raiders did take a Pirate in the 6th round when they selected Lance Yaremchuk. Yaremchuk joins the likes of Sawyer Lange (4th round in 2009) and Tarayn Phaneuf (5th round 2010) as former Venice House Pirates selected by the Raiders in three drafts. In the future it appears you will see some Prince Albert and Saskatchewan flavor with four Saskatchewan selections Thursday.
The most interesting selection of the draft was the Raiders taking Saskatoon goaltender Rylan Parenteau on the 3rd round. I’m not surprised that the Raiders selected a goaltender as most teams do take a goaltender in every draft. I’m surprised that they took one that early in the draft (goaltenders are usually taken in the later rounds in the WHL draft because they are a higher risk and take longer to develop). In fact he was only the 3rd goaltender taken overall in this draft. Raiders are already very deep in goal with 17 year old Eric Williams (poised to be the #1 goaltender next season), 16 year old Brenden Fiebelkorn (highly touted who should back-up Williams next year), and local 15 year old Tarayn Phaneuf (who should be one of the Mintos goaltenders next year). After talking to people who have seen Parenteau play a lot this season with the Saskatoon Maniacs (who lost in provincial finals to the Venice House Pirates) I believe this kid may be a steal in the 3rd round. He was easily the best goaltender from Saskatchewan in this draft. You can never have too many good goaltenders in your system (just ask the Philadelphia Flyers, they would take just one good goaltender).
The Raiders used the draft to hopefully improve certain facets of their team two or three years done the road. These prospects coupled with the other players drafted in the previous years and the non-drafted players signed by the Raiders are the blueprint for the future. Even the players that weren’t drafted can turn out to be pretty special players, ask Rejean Beauchemin (went undrafted than signed by the Raiders to become arguably the best Raider goaltender ever). In three or four years we can decide if the draft was success or failure but right now we can be optimistic of this group of kids who could be faces of the franchise down the road.
