The Prince George Spruce Kings have been busy this week in anticipation of the BCHL trade deadline and will have two new forwards in the lineup this weekend to face the Surrey Eagles.
On Monday they acquired the rights to 19-year-old right winger Haydn Delorme in a future considerations deal with the Coquitlam Express, which came on the heels of last week's trade to pick up 18-year-old centre Mason Reeves.
Delorme, a five-foot-11, 175-pound native of Port Moody, missed the first two-thirds of the season while he recovered mononucleosis, and has yet to play a game in 2019-20. His game conditioning might take time to acquire but Delorme needs no introduction to the skill level and fast pace of junior hockey.
After starting his junior career two seasons ago with the the Express, Delorme made the jump to the WHL last season with the Portland Winterhawks. He played 31 regular season games, posting a goal and three assists, and was also on the ice for four playoff games.
The former Vancouver Northeast Chiefs major midget put up six goals and 14 points in 53 BCHL games with Coquitlam in 2017-18 and also collected two points in four playoff games.
"He's a veteran guy - I actually remember watching him as a 17-year-old in Coquitlam and he stood out to me with an offensive upside and worked hard and had a pretty good overall game,'" said Spruce Kings general manager Mike Hawes.
"When I had the opportunity to get him I jumped at it knowing that we need that little shot in the arm up front. Anytime you play on a Mike Johnston-coached team in Portland you're certainly going to benefit from that and I know Haydn did, and hopefully that will translate into our lineup and help us."
Fans who show up this weekend at Rolling Mix Concrete Arena to watch the Spruce Kings rekindle their rivalry with Eagles in a two-game set Friday and Saturday will get their first look at Reeves playing his first home game with the defending BCHL champs.
Reeves was acquired last week in the deal with the Brooks Bandits which sent winger Ryan McAllister to the Alberta Junior Hockey League team. The The six-foot-four, 185-pound Toronto native made his BCHL debut last Friday in Langley, helping the Kings to a 4-3 victory which ran their winning streak to a season-high three games.
"I didn't get down to Langley but I watched the game and Mason was everything I thought he would be," said Hawes. "He's a big physical forward who skates extremely well and he was a big factor in the game and played quite a bit. We were short some bodies and he played more than we would normally play a player who's not familiar with our systems. He threw a huge hit on our first goal in Langley that opened up the puck for (Corey) Cunningham, who scored.
"He's certainly our type of player with a lot of speed and size. We do need a bit of that size up front and Mason brings us that for sure. He was a highly-recruited guy that Brooks was able to get out of Ontario."
On Tuesday the Kings sent 18-year-old rookie defenceman Cole Leal back to his native Ontario in a futures trade with the Hawksbury Hawks of the Central Canada Hockey League. That dropped the Kings' roster to just six defencemen and Hawes said he will try to bring in one more rearguard, as well as another forward, to fill the team's final two cards before the BCHL's 3 p.m. Friday roster deadline.
Leal, who missed six weeks early in the season with an ankle injury, was a healthy scratch Dec. 20 in Surrey and wasn't happy with his icetime and asked Hawes for a trade. Hawes made it clear he doesn't want players who aren't prepared to put team goals ahead of personal ambitions.
"I knew we would run into that a bit this year having to turn over 17 players like we did," said Hawes.
"The culture of entitlement that athletes have and junior hockey players have nowadays, we've run into that a little bit this year and I knew we would," said Hawes.
"It seems to be just the way it is with the players don't want to come in and earn what they get. They think they're entitled to it and that's what happens sometimes. When that happens I'm more than happy to move them on to a different place and bring somebody else in who is not feeling entitled and is willing to do the work to earn what they get."
Left winger Wil Kushniryk, who played six games in the WHL over the last couple months after getting called up to the Calgary Hitmen, is back with the Spruce Kings. In 19 games with the Kings this season the six-foot-five, 210-pound Chilliwack native has two goals and two assists.
The Kings (14-21-2-3) are three points behind the Eagles (15-19-2-4-0) and with a pair of regulation wins this weekend can pass Surrey into fourth place in the Mainland Division.
"Without question, this hasn't been quite the year we hoped it would be, but we knew we were into a bit of a rebuilding with the turnover we had," said Hawes. "These two games this weekend are probably the biggest of the season so far and the players know what's at stake."
The Kings have just seven home games left in the season, not including their LNG Road Show games against the Langley Rivermen in Kitimat, Feb. 15-16, in which the Kings are the home team.
