Couple things this morning, both poached from Gregg Drinnan's far-superior blog. Seriously, if you read both of our blogs and you ever read my blog before reading his, you're doing it backwards.
First, the Edmonton Oilers have loaned Finnish winger Toni Rajala to the Finnish club Ilves Tampere for the 2010-11 season. Rajala played for the Brandon Wheat Kings last year but since he was not drafted from the WHL there is no requirement that he remain in the WHL until he's 20 like there is for players who were drafted from this league. So the Oilers could send him wherever they liked (he signed a contract with the Oilers last summer) and next season that'll be the Finnish mens league. I would imagine this is due in no small part to Rajala needing to complete a compulsory year of service in the Finnish military, something he can apparently do while still playing hockey over there. If the Oilers envision Rajala having a chance at playing in the NHL in 2011-12, they'd surely want that military commitment over with by then. So, it makes sense on all levels really.
This is another blow to the rebuilding Wheat Kings though. They just passed on their 2nd import pick two weeks ago in order to keep Rajala on the roster, meaning they now will only have one import next year.Would have been nice if the Oilers had tipped Kelly McCrimmon off about their plans two weeks ago, eh?
Brandon loses Rajala's offence, which they could have used next year as they lose 7, maybe 8 of their top 10 scorers from last season, and they also lose a guy who would have had some good trade value to a contender, a move that could have expedited Brandon's rebuild.
The other bit of news? Even more significant - as it appears that Medicine Hat Tigers are going to lose their coach and G.M., as Willie Desjardins appears to be finally taking the leap to the NHL, with a new job in the Dallas Stars organization. The replacement at coach will be current assistant coach Shaun Clouston, who has been a head coach in the WHL before in Tri-City. No word on who will take over as general manager though.
Anyone who follows the Tigers knows just how significant Willie Desjardins has been to that team. When he took over as coach in 2002-03, the Tigers had missed the playoffs for five straight years (think about how hard you have to work at being bad in order to accomplish that in a league where only a few teams miss the playoffs every year) and been last overall a couple times in that span. Since he arrived they have made the playoffs every year, been above .500 the last seven seasons, and won two WHL titles, in 2004 and 2007. Talk about your night to day transformations.
It's impossible for the Tigers to replace a guy like that. Desjardins was one of the early people in the league to recognize the way hockey was trending away from emphasizing size and more towards speed and skill. His Tigers teams were quick and they could score. Now, speed is something you see every team in every league, including the NHL, putting a premium on.
Very big shoes for Clouston (and the new G.M.) to fill there.
2 comments:
Drinnan's articles are very good but why does his site still show your site on the left referring to the Brandon prospects ? Maybe it is my computer.
Not your computer and not Gregg's problem either. My post "feed" seems to have become stuck on that post and nothing I have written since then has made it out.
I've tried a few things....nothing worked. I'll try again to "unstick" it when I have some time.
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