Chiefs Working On Roster Shuffle
Only two over-age players, forwards Derek Schutz and Jared Smyth, will report next month when the Spokane Chiefs open training camp.
The Western Hockey League team has parted company with three veterans in the wake of last season’s last-place finish.
Curtis Suter, Bobby Leavins and Matt Cockell will play elsewhere as 20-year-olds, Chiefs coach Mike Babcock said this week.
“Curtis has expressed interest in being traded,” Babcock said. “We’ve talked, and he won’t be back. We’re going to do whatever we can to provide an opportunity somewhere else. If that’s not in this league, I’m sure we can help find him a spot somewhere else (in the minors).”
A 6-4, 220-pound left wing who played three seasons in Spokane, Suter was a fifth-round draft pick of the Phoenix Coyotes in ‘97. He was not signed and is a free agent.
Suter’s seven goals and 12 assists in 65 games last year disappointed Babcock, who at the beginning of the season hoped the big winger would establish himself as a force in front of the net.
Suter’s ice time fell as the Chiefs went to a youth movement late in the season. They finished in the West Division cellar for only the second time in 14 years.
The Chiefs will bring in two U.S. defensemen, one with Suter’s size. He’s 6-4, 225-pound Kurt Sauer of Sartell, Minn., younger brother of Atlanta Falcons linebacker Craig Sauer. Sauer played as a 17-year-old last season with North Iowa in the U.S. Junior Hockey League.
Dryden Henry, a puck-moving defenseman from Devils Lake, N.D., will also play here.
Leavins came from Kamloops in an early-season trade and “was a stop-gap for us,” the coach said. “By the end of the year, he was basically phased out. We talked about it at our meeting at the end of the season. I don’t know if he’s headed to the University of Saskatchewan, or to the Central League.”
Cockell, the Chiefs’ well-traveled backup goaltender, may decide to enroll and play at the University of Manitoba, Babcock said.
Schutz is in the best shape of his life, Babcock said, free of the shoulder misery that has plagued him the last two years.
“Derek has done as much as he’s ever done to put himself in a position to have a good year,” Babcock said. “Nobody was more frustrated than he was last year, with the second shoulder injury. He was 183 pounds (down 10 pounds), when nothing went well. But he’s a great kid who’s much stronger than he has been. We’re looking for great things out of him.”
Babcock still hopes that Smyth will find the scoring touch that has eluded him in three WHL seasons. Smyth has scored only 22 goals in 190 games with the Chiefs.
“It’s like anybody, you get to a certain age and you’ve got to produce,” the coach said. “Smitty’s in that boat. He’d be the first to tell you things haven’t gone the way he anticipated. He’s a world-class skater who’s put on a ton of strength. It’s now time for this kid, and he knows it.”