Josh Connolly will need no introduction to his new hockey home at CN Centre.
The 19-year-old defenceman and native of Prince George was traded Wednesday to the Prince George Cougars from the Kamloops Blazers along with the Blazers sixth-round bantam draft pick in 2015.
Heading to Kamloops is 19-year-old defenceman Marc McNulty, a fourth-year Cougar, as well as the Cougars' sixth-round pick in 2016.
The addition of Connolly, a former Cariboo Cougars midget who played all his minor hockey in Prince George, gives the Cats a much-needed right-hand shot on the power play.
"Josh has been a bit of a bit of a Prince George Cougars killer every time we seem to play them so it's better to have him on your team than against you," said Cougars general manager Todd Harkins. "He's somebody I've had my eye on all season and every time we play them I've always been impressed with Josh's game."
Connolly currently ranks sixth in scoring among WHL defencemen with 34 points, including five goals, in 39 games. He also has 20 penalty minutes. In 164 career WHL games he notched 17 goals 68 assists and 66 penalty minutes. He led the Blazers blueliners last season with 45 points.
"He skates very efficiently. He gets around the ice very well and he has an offensive side to his game that we covet with the youth on our team. Being able to put that into the mix with our power play, which is towards the bottom of the league, we figure if we can get our power play going in the right direction it's going to translate into wins."
The six-foot-six, 210-pound McNulty was the leading-scoring defenceman on the Cougars in 2013-14, with 17 goals and 42 points in 67 games. He had five goals and 15 points in 30 games this season. In 170 career WHL games, he has 30 goals and 72 points.
Harkins said the emergence of 18-year-old Cougar captain Sam Ruopp as the leader of a young group of defencemen was a contributing factor that made McNulty expendable.
"Marc's game is all about his reach and his size and we have a pretty big corps back there," said Harkins. "The way Sam Ruopp has developed as a defenceman, it allows us to use him in key situations with his size and his reach and we felt we needed to address our offensive ability on the back end."
The Detroit Red Wings picked McNulty in the sixth round of the 2013 draft.
Marc has always been a player we have coveted off the Cougars roster, said Blazers general manager Craig Bonner. Marc is a big and mobile defenceman. He has shown some offensive abilities and also can play with an edge.
Connolly is expected to join his Cougar teammates on the bus Thursday in Cache Creek on their way to Victoria. The younger brother of Brett, a Tampa Bay Lighting forward and former Cougar captain, was originally dealt Tuesday from Kamloops to the Swift Current Broncos along with the Blazers' second-round pick in 2016 for 18-year-old defenceman Brycen Martin, the Buffalo Sabres' third-round pick in the 2014 NHL draft. But that trade was nullified by the WHL office.
"I'm not sure what happened, I just knew it was void and that he was still available and I inquired and we were able to make something work between both clubs," said Harkins. "We're very fortunate that trade went sideways."
Martin, picked second overall by the Broncos in the 2011 draft, was subsequently dealt Wednesday to the Saskatoon Blades along with a conditional fifth-round pick in 2017 for 18-year-old defenceman Jordan Thomson and a 2016 first-round pick Saskatoon acquired from Red Deer.
Former Cougar forward Alex Forsberg, who turned 20 on Sunday, was sent Tuesday to the Victoria Royals from Saskatoon along with a third-rounder in 2015 and a fourth-rounder in 2016 in exchange for for 16-year-old forward Brayden Dunn and a first-round pick in 2017. Forsberg, the first-overall bantam pick in 2010, played four seasons with the Cougars before he was traded to Saskatoon over the summer. He led the Blades in scoring with 13 goals and 33 points in 36 games.
The Cougars acquired 19-year-old Czech-born import defenceman Tomas Andrlik on Tuesday from Prince Albert for a 12th round pick in 2015.
Andrlik is out with a sprained ankle and is not expected to play for the Cougars until the Everett series at CN Centre, Jan. 20-21. That meant the Cougars were down to just five defenceman for Wednesday game at CN Centre against the Tri-City Americans.
The WHL roster deadline is 11 a.m. on Saturday.
