Lately, there have been some lean years in Blazer Country.
The Kamloops Blazers have missed the playoffs three of the past five seasons and haven’t won a series since the 2012-13 season.
Even with the lack of recent playoff success for the Western Hockey League club that has captured the Ed Chynoweth Cup more than any other franchise, there hasn’t been much to cheer about on the home front.
Both of those low points could change soon, as the 4,888 fans in attendance Friday night at the Sandman Centre got a glimpse into what their future might hold after witnessing the WHL debut of Logan Stankoven, a kid born and raised in Kamloops.
Stankoven was a name bubbling in the projected top 10 for the WHL Bantam Draft last spring. In 30 games with Abbotsford’s Yale Hockey Academy Bantam Prep program, he racked up 57 goals to lead his draft class.
With that kind of production, die-hard Blazer fans that follow bantam prep hockey prospects began salivating, knowing that their club owned the fifth-overall pick.
A few scouts thought that the draft began after Carson Lambos, who was talked about as the best defenceman in the draft, was taken with the top pick.
Behind Lambos, scouts in Alberta projected a mix of forwards that could go in any particular order from the second pick, all the way down to the sixth pick.
Stankoven was bunched in with the names Dylan Guenther, Sean Tschigerl, Jayden Grubbe and Zack Stringer, as who could be the top forwards taken in the draft.
To the surprise of some, Guenther went first to the Edmonton Oil Kings. Behind him, the Kootenay ICE snagged Lambos to add to their young core.
After that, the Prince Albert Raiders took the Saskatchewan-born blue liner Nolan Allan.
With the fourth pick, the Calgary Hitmen took what they believed was the best 200-foot centre in the draft in Tschigerl. That conveniently left the local kid to fall into the Blazers’ laps.
“He’s highly competitive, a highly skilled forward that can really score goals with a tremendous shot. Picking him was a no-brainer,” said former Blazer GM Stu MacGregor, who was reassigned to the Dallas Stars after the Bantam Draft. “It didn’t hurt that he was local.”
At No. 5, Stankoven was the highest Kamloops kid to be drafted by the Blazers.
“First and foremost, you got to be a good hockey player to go fifth overall. It really didn’t matter where he was from, we were going to take him,” said MacGregor, who was in attendance for Stankoven’s debut.
The 5-foot-8, 170-pound Stankoven was thought of as one of the stronger kids in the draft. The Blazers pounced on the fiery centre and now a hungry hockey community has one of their own to follow in what they hope is a successful junior career and possibly even a professional one.
They have certainly waited long enough.
It hasn’t been the cities’ fault: There have been plenty of kids that have come up through the prep programs, developed and went onto success at the junior level. There have even a few that reached the professional ranks.
Projecting what 14- and 15-year-old kids are going to develop into is a tricky guessing game and there are certainly no rules that force WHL clubs into drafting homegrown talent. But over the years, the Blazers have had more than their share of opportunities to select local players but chose differently for varying reasons.
In the past 10 Bantam Drafts, there have been 33 players selected that were Kamloops natives or that played their bantam hockey in Kamloops. Nineteen of those players went in the top five rounds of the draft. (There have also been players that went undrafted and were listed by WHL teams.)
In those 10 previous drafts, only five players were chosen by the Blazers with only two of them coming in the top five rounds. One of those two players was Stankoven this past spring. The other was the Blazers former captain Nick Chyzowski, who was taken in the second round, 44th overall during the 2012 Bantam Draft.
With that, there have been a few notable omissions on local talent during the draft.
The 2014 and 2011 drafts both saw eight local players taken by the Blazers, with only one of the eight in each draft being local.
In 2011, the Blazers drafted fourth overall and took defenceman Jordan Thomson from Manitoba over other homegrown blue liners that went onto experience better careers in Ryan Gropp (sixth overall) and Joe Hicketts (12th overall).
Gropp won an Ed Chynoweth Cup with the Seattle Thunderbirds in 2017 and is currently playing for the New York Rangers affiliate, the Hartford Wolf Pack. Meanwhile, Hicketts appeared in 224 games with the Victoria Royals and is working on cementing his spot with the Detroit Red Wings.
Former Blazers Director of Player Personnel Matt Recchi said earlier this year in a story about the WHL Bantam Draft Lottery that the team wasn’t certain about Gropp’s intentions in the league. He also admitted, “In self-evaluation, I think we got it wrong and took the wrong defenceman. Looking back, Joe Hicketts was the defenceman we should have taken.”
Three years later, seven Kamloops kids flew off the board before the Blazers selected Tyler Ward in the 11thround. By the time the Blazers’ selections from that draft were eligible for their NHL Draft season and, more importantly, entering the prime of their junior careers, the Blazers went on to miss the next two postseason opportunities.
If you want to go even further back, the Blazers passed up on future NHLer Riley Nash in the fourth round of the 2004 draft.
There was uncertainty around Nash’s decision to play in the WHL, as his older brother played for the Salmon Arm Silverbacks of the B.C. Hockey League. Playing it safe, the Blazers picked Charles Stretch, a centre from California.
Stretch was a perfectly fine alternative; he played 341 games for the Blazers and produced 85 goals, 163 assists and 248 points. He eventually grinded out a five-year career between the AHL and ECHL, and is currently in his fourth pro season in Europe.
Nash was scooped up by the Saskatoon Blades the very next pick and indeed chose to play in Salmon Arm. Nash eventually turned himself into a first-round pick by the Edmonton Oilers and is currently in his eighth season in the NHL with 53 goals in over 400 games in the books.
The Blazers can’t be faulted on every pick that didn’t go their way. Sometimes they weren’t in proper position to draft a Kamloops kid that went on to be an impact player in the WHL and an NHL prospect.
Such was the case in 2015, when the Medicine Hat Tigers nabbed Chyzowski’s younger brother Ryan, 17th overall. The Blazers weren’t up for another five picks and it’s believable to think that they would have liked to keep it in the family.
Since then, Ryan burst onto the scene with the Tigers last year when he registered 21 goals and 31 assists in 72 games. Those efforts earned him a camp invite by the Vegas Golden Knights.
All that being said, the Blazers aren’t the only team lacking local products on their roster.
It should be noted that had the Blazers not called up Stankoven this season, they would have been in the same boat as 12 other clubs in not having local players on their current roster.
Currently, the Oil Kings lead the way with four locals, with a few more teenagers from in and around the Edmonton area on their roster.
Finding homegrown talent that leads teams to championships and goes onto to enjoy a professional career is an extremely difficult thing to come by, especially for a team located in a city ranked in the bottom half of the league in population.
But Kamloops was a hockey hotbed at one point. In a 12-year span from 1983-95, the Blazers went to eight WHL finals and won six. The five most recent Blazer WHL championship teams all featured at least one local player.
Those teams thrived in the pre-draft days. Now with deeper scouting departments and the draft process, it is easier to spot, recruit and pluck players from other provinces and states. Not to mention, other teams having access to the same resources in an attempt to pull kids from Kamloops into their programs elsewhere.
As far as homegrown talent to don a Blazer jersey and experience a lengthy NHL career, it’s few and far between. Only the legendary Mark Recchi — who was honoured on the same night Stankoven made his debut — and Rudy Poeschek enjoyed significant careers with the Blazers and with a variety of NHL teams.
That’s it, that’s the list.
So, it’s safe to say that it’s been a while since a local Blazer played a prominent role in the best league in the world. It’s been hard enough to witness any former Blazer in the show since the end of the 00s, regardless of where they are from.
After the Darcy Tuckers, Jarome Iginlas, Shane Doans and Daryl Sydors of the world debuted and established themselves as NHL stars, the Blazer pipeline to the NHL began to run dry. While Doan and Iginla wrapped up their careers at the end of the 2017 campaign, the two most prominent Blazers to spend a significant time in the NHL following that wave of the 90s championship Blazers were Scottie Upshall and Shaone Morrison.
There is one current and one former Blazer that could break into the league over the next few years and reverse that trend.
Up next and already with one NHL appearance with the Golden Knights under his belt is current Blazer goaltender Dylan Ferguson. Ferguson was taken in the eighth round by the Blazers in 2013 and has played 114 games for the only junior franchise he’s known. In those games, he has posted a 47-53-1-5 record with a 3.11 goals against average and a .906 save percentage in 114 games. He is currently in his overage season and will most likely find himself playing pro hockey somewhere in North America next year.
The American-born Garrett Pilon was taken one round earlier than Ferguson by the Blazers in the same draft and could also find himself in an NHL uniform one of these days.
The Blazers dealt Pilon to the Everett Silvertips last year during the trade deadline, but before that, Pilon played 177 games with the Blazers, where he turned into a third-round pick by the Washington Capitals. This year, Pilon is playing for their American Hockey League affiliate Hershey Bears.
Connecting on both a homegrown draft pick and developing him into an NHL prospect is difficult, but for the first time in a while, the Blazers might be onto something.
“He’s going to turn into a No. 1 centre that will be relied on to score and make things happen offensively,” said McGregor. “He’s going to compete every game and try to be the best there is and drag his team into battle each night. His skill level and compete level will help them win a lot of games.”
Prior to his WHL debut, the right-handed shot was making minced meat of the under-18 B.C. Major Midget League as one of the youngest players in the league.
Before getting called up to the WHL, Stankoven, who turns 16 in early February, was second in the league in goals (10) and first in points (16). Behind him was another future Kamloops Blazer and local kid in Jarrod Semchuk (a sixth–round pick in 2017) with 15 points.
“The biggest thing we have noticed this year is that (Stankoven) hasn’t looked out of place going up against kids that turn 18 this year,” said Thompson Blazers Head Coach Carter Cochrane. “He has really committed to playing a two-way game this year by getting back, supporting the puck and making other guys around him better.”
The debut couldn’t have gone any better for Stankoven.
First, he took the ice for the pregame warm up sporting a throwback Recchi jersey, along with the rest of his teammates.
“It’s not everyday you get called up as a 15-year-old, never mind on a person’s night like Mark Recchi who played a big role for this organization,” said Stankoven, who was born 14 years after Recchi played his last game in Kamloops. “I definitely look up to him as a role mentor and try and model my game after him.”
The Blazers kept Stankoven under wraps for the most part. He never saw any time on special teams and logged 14 shifts in total, four of which that started in the offensive zone.
Despite being eased into the game, that didn’t stop the rookie from creating opportunities in the Swift Current Broncos’ zone.
Early in the first, he tried to set up Martin Lang. In the second, he found some open space right in front of the net, but was robbed by Joel Hofer.
“The best way to put it with Stankoven is that he has that high level of skill. There’s other guys in our dressing room that have that level of skill, but he’s just in constant motion. With a player like that, you let them curve the lines a little bit more and be a little more creative. He has the mentality that it’s his puck and that (he) wants the puck and when (he) gets it, (he’s) going to make a play, so get open,” said Blazers Head Coach Serge LaJoie.
It was also a dream finish for the local kid.
Late in the third tied 3-3, Stankoven made the simple and smart pass up to fellow rookie Josh Pillar in the neutral zone. Pillar gained the zone, found a lane and ripped the game-winning goal with 3:12 remaining in regulation. The goal was Pillar’s first of his career, Stankowski wiped out a negative rating from earlier in the game and picked up his first point.
“The more I get to know Logan, I find out that he’s a really easy kid to like. I can’t say that I was as excited as if it was my own son playing, but good for him. He’s earned everything he’s gotten,” said LaJoie, whose son Marc was taken nine picks behind Stankoven by the Tri-City Americans. “It’s not easy for a hometown kid to come here. What I find special about him is his ability to focus in on what he needs to get done and not let the pressure get to him.
“I just love to watch him play.”
The local fans certainly noticed whenever he was on the ice. Any shot, pass to an open man, or cut to the front of a net for a hopefully tip in got a stir. His biggest ovation came after the end of the game, when he took a quick lap after being named the second star.
“I really appreciated that. It doesn’t happen everyday, so I’m thankful for all the support from everyone who came tonight,” said Stankoven. “It was great. I loved every second of it.”
It was a fairy-tale debut for Stankoven, who helped the Blazers end a seven-game slide. After the post-game media circus ended, Stankoven greeted family, Thompson Blazers teammates and friends in attendance, he went back into his routine of preparing to play with his midget squad, who took on the Cariboo Cougars the following morning, but from a different dressing room down the hall.
And that’s the plan moving forward, according the LaJoie. The team took advantage of some injuries to get him in the lineup; the suspension to Jermaine Loewen and a tomato can opponent in the Broncos. LaJoie stated there was no plan when to call him back, but was confident more opportunities would present themselves.
A stunning debut like that certainly calls for an encore.
“His competitive spirit reminds me of Hicketts,” said Cochrane, who grew up playing with the Red Wing blue liner. “He has all the tools to be a high-end WHL player and he has a good shot at going pro. There are no holes in his game and you don’t see his passion for the sport in other kids. There’s no limit for him.”
To put the passing-of-the-torch pressure on a 15-year-old kid one game into his WHL career is unnecessary, a waste of time and should be illegal. But, what Friday night provided was the rare chance for the community to witness the debut of a potential future star for their team in his home rink.
Isn’t that what watching junior hockey is all about? No one is expecting Stankoven to lead the WHL in points as an 18-year-old, take the Blazers back to the finals and play 400 games in the NHL. But, what was special about Friday night was that it was the beginning of what could be a very exciting junior career. Now, Blazer fans can sit back and enjoy one of their own for a couple of years, rooting harder than ever for him to succeed and enjoy his time in a Blazer sweater. It’s something they haven’t had the chance to do in a while.
