Christmas in May?
That's what draft day feels like for Todd Harkins, director of player personnel for the Prince George Cougars.
His whole year has been built around what will transpire in Calgary starting at 7:30 a.m. PDT today, when he sits down with Cougars general manager Dallas Thompson to begin selecting graduating bantam hockey players in the WHL draft.
"You put a lot of hours and a lot of effort in and we have a great staff and these are kind of the fruits of our labour," said Harkins. "It feels like we're waiting for Christmas and we're excited. There are a lot of things happening with our organization and we want to make sure we nail this draft and continue to get the Cougars moving in the right direction."
The Cougars hold the fifth overall pick and will be choosing from a list of about 200 1999-born players from the four western Canadian provinces, Northwest Territories, the Yukon and the western United States.
"We have a couple of players we've zeroed in on around the fifth pick and we're hoping one of those two players will be there, which we're pretty confident they will be," said Harkins, a Cougars scout last year at the draft who was promoted to the team's head scout on July 1, 2013.
"We've identified over 200 players and we've mapped out 30 players we're very keen on that we want to get with our 10 picks. The staff has met for the last three days here in Calgary and we're confident our list is very detailed. We've seen probably over 1,500 games this year and there's probably not a kid we haven't seen in western Canada and the United States."
The Cougars traded their third pick in 2014 to Edmonton in the January 2013 deal that brought forward Klarc Wilson to Prince George, and they are also without a fourth-round pick today, sent to Spokane in a 2012 trade to acquire goalie Mac Engel. Harkins and Thompson have had some discussions with other WHL teams that could result in the Cougars tinkering with their current roster to try to regain those draft picks.
Stelio Mattheos, a six-foot-two, 174-pound centre who led the Manitoba triple-A bantam league in scoring with 52 goals and 103 points in 32 games for the Winnipeg Monarchs, is being considered the most likely player to be chosen first overall.
"He's a power forward who can skate and distribute the puck and he plays a hard, competitive game," said Harkins.
Another highly-touted player is centre Jordan Bellerive of the North Shore Winter Club. Bellerive helped the Winterhawks win the provincial Tier 1 bantam title in Prince George, then led his team to the Western Canadian championship in Kelowna. In 65 games, Bellerive totaled 68 goals and 60 assists for 128 points.
"He's a very strong skater and controls the play with his speed and his size," said Harkins. "He has a WHL shot and plays a very high-tempo game."
Mattheos and Bellerive are clearly ahead of the rest of the graduating bantam class. The Cougars have had their eyes on winger Justin Almeida, a native of Kitimat who played on a line with Bellerive with North Shore. Almeida will be based in Prince George next season playing in the B.C. Major Midget League with the Cariboo Cougars.
Also likely to be snapped up early are North Shore defenceman Nolan Kneen (68g, 60a, 128 pts) and defenceman Jake Harrison of the Kelowna-based Pursuit of Excellence bantam Tier 1 team (18-22-40).
The Cougars have scouts in Colorado and Minnesota and Harkins also relies on his brother Don, head scout of the OHL's Plymouth Whalers, and brother Brett, a former NHL winger and head coach of the Cleveland Barons under-16 team, for information on the top American prospects.
"The majority of the kids are coming from the L.A. region, Colorado and Minnesota, but they're also coming from Oklahoma and Texas," Harkins said.
The Brandon Wheat Kings have the first-overall pick as a result of a 2012 trade with the Saskatoon Blades which sent right winger Brenden Walker to the Blades for a third-round choice. That deal carried a condition which allowed the Wheat Kings to swap first-round picks with the Blades. Although Saskatoon finished second-last in the WHL overall standings, ahead of the last-overall Lethbridge Hurricanes, the Wheat Kings moved up one position with the Blades' pick when they won the draft lottery, open to teams which missed the WHL playoffs.
The Portland Winterhawks will forfeit their first-round pick (21st overall) as a result of WHL sanctions for player benefit violations, a penalty handed them in November 2012. The Winterhawks were excluded from the first five rounds of the 2013 bantam draft and will also have to forfeit their first-round picks in 2015, 2016 and 2017.
Portland begins defence of its WHL championship on Saturday at home in Game 1 of the final series against the Edmonton Oil Kings.
