With the Red Deer Rebels set to select sixth and 24th overall on Wednesday, the team has a lot of reasons to be excited. The team has picked four times at sixth overall and another four times at 24th overall. Overall the Rebels currently have 14 selections over the 15 round bantam draft. Teams generally pass on later round draft picks, picking between eight and 11 players. Red Deer has three second-round picks this year but also does not have a single pick in rounds four through six.
Here are the previous picks Red Deer has had at sixth overall.
Justin Mapletoft – 1996
Mapletoft went on to an all-time career for the Rebels, amassing 115 goals and 160 assists over a career that spanned five seasons. His 275 points are good for third all-time behind Arron Asham and Brandon Hagel. He has also played the sixth-most games in a Rebels jersey. Drafted by the New York Islanders in the fifth round of the 1999 NHL Draft, Mapletoft also won an Ed Chynoweth Cup with the Rebels, while leading the team to the Memorial Cup in the 2000-01 WHL season.
Mapletoft went on to play in several leagues throughout North America and Europe, reaching hockey’s pinnacle in 2002-03 with the New York Islanders. He went on to play 38 NHL games and 318 AHL games. Other stops included Liiga (Finland), DEL (Germany), SHL (Sweden), and NLB (Switzerland).
Brandon Sutter – 2004
Sutter played minor hockey in Chicago before heading to the Red Deer area, getting drafted as a member of the Red Deer Chiefs bantam AAA program. Sutter spent four seasons with the Rebels, playing in 205 games for the club. 68 goals and 86 assists were tallied up by Sutter for the Rebels while being drafted by the Carolina Hurricanes, 11th overall in 2007.
Sutter has an IIHF World Junior Championships to his name and has spent 12 seasons in the NHL amassing 143 goals and 134 assists. He is currently a member of the Vancouver Canucks.
Adam Musil – 2012
Playing his Bantam season in British Columbia with the Burnaby Winter Club Musil had 98 points in 60 games in his draft season. The Rebels were happy to welcome the son of former NHLer Frantisek Musil to the club. He spent all four seasons with the Rebels playing in 251 games, scoring 65 goals and adding 97 assists, putting him in the Rebels all-time top-15 scorers.
Musil was drafted in the fourth round by the St. Louis Blues in 2015 and played 121 games with their AHL affiliates. He has since returned to his native Czech Republic, playing for Bili Tygri Liberec of the Czech League.
Jake Leschyshyn – 2014
(Photo – Keith Hershmiller)
Leschyshyn played his bantam in Saskatoon with the Stallions before being selected by the Rebels. He never made it to Red Deer though as he was dealt to the Regina Pats on January 10th, 2015. The deal sent a conditional 2017 fourth-round pick and Leschyshyn to Regina for Connor Gay, a second-round 2015 pick, a first-round 2016 pick, and a seventh-round 2017 pick.
There have been several other notable sixth overall picks in the last 30 years of the WHL Bantam Draft. Those include Curtis Brown, Moose Jaw -1991, Patrick Marleau, Seattle – 1994, Brent Seabrook, Lethbridge – 2000, Kenndal McArdle, Moose Jaw – 2002, Cody Eakin, Swift Current – 2006, and Josh Morrissey, Prince Albert – 2010.
Over the 10 year period from 2005-2014, the sixth overall pick has played in an average of 248 WHL games and has gone on to be drafted to the NHL nine of the ten times. Forwards average 83 goals and 104 assists over their careers. Defensemen have averaged 28 goals and 109 assists in their careers.
The Rebels have also drafted four times at 24th overall. This includes Scott MacQueen – 1996, Justin Weller – 2006, Daulton Siwak – 2008 and Byron Fancy – 2016.
