Chiefs Look Ahead Upcoming Bantam Draft Always Good Place To Start

Two wins from their second Western Hockey League West Division championship in six years, the Spokane Chiefs have plenty on their plate this spring.

Not so much, however, that they won’t divert considerable attention to the bantam draft a week from Thursday.

That’s the primary source of the kind of talent that has taken the franchise so far this season.

Spokane’s director of player personnel, Ray Dudra, is among the most successful talent hunters in hockey at projecting how much a skinny 14-year-old will contribute here in two to four years.

The Chiefs have the 15th pick of the first round from a talent pool that may not be as deep as recent seasons.

Portland is expected to take Gabe Chartier, a player out of Junior A hockey in Chilliwack, British Columbia, with the first pick. The Winter Hawks want a player who can contribute immediately, Dudra said. The boy has a 1984 birthday, which makes him a year older than the North American kids the Chiefs are looking at, players with 1985 birthdays.

“I think this class is a little leaner than usual,” Dudra said. “Everybody should get a pretty good player in the first round. After that, you hope that some teams make some mistakes that allow you to get a pretty good kid in the second round.”

Because of their consistent success - last year being the notable exception - the Chiefs are used to picking late in the first. They nabbed Jeff Lucky with the 14th selection two years ago. Mason

Wallin came with the ninth pick the year before that. Brandin Cote was still around in 1996, when Spokane took him with the 17th choice of the opening round.

Kyle Rossiter was the fifth pick of the second round, the 22nd choice overall.

A couple of this year’s notable successes - Tim Smith and Kurt Sauer - were undrafted, Smith because of his size, Sauer because he was a late-blooming Minnesota kid. But the bantam draft, and the European draft in July, will always be critical to consistency.

Dudra says success in the draft is a team win.

“Part of it is having Mike Babcock as coach,” said Dudra, who lives in Calgary. “Mike has faith in us, as scouts, so that when we say a kid can play, he plays them. When we get to the 15th pick, we’ll take the best player, whether he’s 5-foot-7 or 6-foot-3.”

Babcock calmed troops

When the Chiefs found themselves down two goals early in Monday night’s game in the Arena, Babcock used his timeout not to chew on his team but to quell the panic.

“I thought we had dominated the play,” Babcock said. “We made two mistakes in our zone, turned it over, and they shot it in the net. We just said, `Guys, we’re all over ‘em. Just be patient.’ “That kid (Prince George goaltender Scott Myers) made a ton of good saves (14, before the Chiefs finally scored inside the final minute of the first period),” Babcock added.

Eventually, the Cougars’ last line of defense wore down.

So did the Cougars’ patience. Saddled with their second straight loss, livid over Roman Tvrdon’s shot that bounced off the elbow of the crossbar and the post but was counted as a Spokane goal, the Cougars were in a foul mood in the closing seconds.

The Chiefs expect an even stiffer challenge tonight in the Multiplex, where as the home coach, Prince George’s Ed Dempsey will dictate matchups with the last line changes. Look for him to spot Tyler Bouck to advantage. When Babcock rolls out his fourth line, it’ll probably be confronted at times by the Cougars’ talented captain and his equally skilled linemates Blair Betts and Trent Hunter.

Because of that, Babcock may shorten his bench by rotating his top three lines, or mixing the young forwards on the fourth line with veterans.

“We want to stay after this team,” Babcock said. “We don’t want to give anybody any momentum.”

Notes

With hard feeling on both sides, it seems just a matter of time before Prnce Geroge’s Tyler Bouck trades shots with Spokane’s David Boychuk… . Regulars at the Arena may have noticed that the popular snippet from the movie Wizard of Oz, mouthed by Dorothy to the Scarecrow (“What would you do with a brain if you had one?”) was cut out of the public address reaction to questionable officiating. Referee Alain Frenette objected to it during Saturday night’s game. How strong the wording of his reaction varies with sources. Chiefs general manager Tim Speltz confirmed that the referee did ask that it not be used. An office official said Frennete didn’t ask, he said that if it was played again, he’d suspend the game until somebody was removed from the building. As funny as it is, it’s been used often enough that it has become a little repetitious. But it would seem that an official’s focus should be intense enough to shut out distractions.