Andy Devlin

Daily Dose of the Dub: ICE make another trade; Tigers still trying to get Podkolzin; Button’s U20 team has U.S. Division flavor

Tigers trade White to the ICE:

The Kootenay ICE brought in another overage player on Monday as they acquired 1998-born forward Jaeger White from the Medicine Hat Tigers in exchange for a conditional draft pick.

White would be the ICE’s fifth overage player on their roster, which is two over the limit. Other overage players on the roster are forward Gunnar Wegleitner – who was acquired from Brandon recently, defensemen Dallas Hines and Martin Bodak and goalie Matt Berlin. Bodak is an import and would take up both an import and an overage spot if he returned. Likely, the ICE are not factoring him in as they move forward with the four overagers and have them battle for the three spots.

White had 34 points in 68 regular season games with the Tigers last year and then potted six points in six playoff games. This is the sixth WHL teams he has had his rights owned by. Prior to Medicine Hat, he played for Lethbridge, Everett and Brandon and was on Moose Jaw’s protected list.

The Tigers meanwhile are down to a possible six 1998-born players. They are forwards Ryan Jevne and Mason Shaw and defensemen Dalton Gally, Linus Nassen, Dylan MacPherson and David Quenneville. Both Shaw and Quenneville have signed contracts with the NHL teams that hold their rights and are not likely back, leaving Gally, Nassen, MacPherson and Jevne. Also, Nassen, like Bodak is an import and would take both an import and an overage spot.

The Tigers technically have just Nassen as a possible import this year, but did draft goalie Mads Sogaard and forward Vasili Podkolzin in June. Sogaard’s signing is reportedly imminent, but the signing of Podkolzin is not as definite. He just had 11 points at the Hlinka Gretzky Cup and is being looked at as a possible top-five NHL pick in next June’s draft. If they cannot sign the speedy Russian, the possibility of Nassen returning and taking one of the two import spots is a nice fall back for the Tigers. The Swedish defender put up 26 points in his first year in the WHL in just 44 games. He attended development camp with the Florida Panthers, along with MacPherson earlier this summer.

Silvertips announce camp schedule:

The Everett Silvertips were the latest team to announce the schedule for their training camp next week.

Camp starts on August 23rd and four different teams made up of 80 players at the camp will compete for three days. Then the camp will close with the annual Green vs Grey game on Sunday, August 25th at 1:30pm.

Links and notes:

TSN analyst Craig Button has four WHL players on his early projection of Hockey Canada’s U20 World Junior Championship team and they are all from the U.S. Division. Button predicts that Spokane’s Ty Smith and Jaret Anderson-Dolan, Portland’s Cody Glass and Tri-City’s Michael Rasmussen will don the maple leaf this December in Vancouver.

-Former Prince George Cougars general manager Todd Harkins has landed a new job.

-Jensen replaces Shane Clifford as the team’s netminding coach.