Raiders goaltender Ian Scott makes a save against the Tri-City Americans on Nov. 16. (Jeff D'Andrea/paNOW Staff)

By Jeff D'Andrea

Exploring the Raiders' 20-year-old situation

Scott, Leason and Kelly to not report to Raider camp; exploring the other 20’s

Aug 30, 2019 | 5:00 PM

Looking at the Prince Albert Raiders’ rosters for their training camp starting on Friday at 5 p.m., it’s a good news, bad news situation for fans.

The good news is the Raiders’ 20-year-old situation got a lot clearer. The bad news is, three crucially important Raiders from last year’s WHL championship winning team that are eligible to return won’t be coming to camp.

The names of last year’s starting goaltender Ian Scott, leading scorer Brett Leason and 35-goal scorer and fan-favourite Parker Kelly are all absent from the camps’ roster sheets. All three of them are getting ready to start their 20-year-old seasons, and all three have signed with NHL teams — which makes their Raider returns very unlikely.

“The best scenario for me would be the complete headache of having all three show up, because man, that would be tough to choose. But in terms of insight, at this point, no,” Raiders General Manager Curtis Hunt said on the possibilities of them returning.

Hunt said that he will be checking in with Scott, Leason and Kelly’s situations when camps start to wrap up to see where they are at but said “most of those calls are made in vain.”

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For Scott, he will attend camp with the Toronto Maple Leafs, who drafted him in the fourth round in 2017 and signed him in Dec. 14, 2018.

After finishing the 2019 WHL season as a champion, goaltender of the year, played at the World Juniors with Team Canada, and set five Raiders records, there isn’t much more Scott can do at the major junior level.

“In a lot of ways, it’s time for those kids to move on, for the kind of players they have to be at the next level. You know, what’s left here for Ian Scott?” Hunt asked. “He’s pretty much accomplished at the personal level, and certainly at the team level, all the accolades. It’s time for him to take the next step and those teams recognize that as well.”

Leason is just as unlikely to return.

After ‘The Reason’ Leason’s breakout season in which he led the Raiders with 89 points in 55 regular season games and 25 in 22 postseason games, the Washington Capitals drafted him in the second round, 56^th overall and signed him over the off-season.

At the draft, Leason had barely put on the Capitals’ jersey at the draft before Washington General Manager Brian MacLellan said Leason will be playing for the Hershey Bears, the Caps’ AHL affiliate.

“He’ll be in Hershey next year, so we’ll see how he does there,” MacLellan said, according to the Sporting News at the draft. “Assuming he needs a full year in Hershey at least and then we’ll go from there.”

For Kelly, the Senators only needed a few looks at him before they put pen to paper.

Kelly attended the Senators’ development as an undrafted free agent and earned himself to the Senators’ rookie and main camps that year, and later signed an entry level contract with the Sens on Sept. 19, 2017.

Kelly has also twice won the Jonathan Pitre Memorial Trophy for the hardest working Senator at development camp.

Kelly scored 35 goals and 67 points for the Raiders in 64 games played in the regular season, and another eight goals and 17 points in 23 post-season games.

But even if you eliminate those three big names for the Raiders’ roster, they still have five 20-year-olds that are attending camp. All five are defencemen too, and three are attending NHL training camps.

Last year’s skipper Brayden Pachal (Vegas) along with assistant captain Zack Hayes (Anaheim), Sergei Sapego (Toronto), as well as Max Martin and Jeremy Masella are all in the mix to fill the 20-year-old shoes.

The one thing that Hunt isn’t going to do is rush a decision. He learned that in his second year as general manager of the Raiders 2016-17 season, with then-sniper Reid Gardiner.

It looked for all the money that Gardiner would be returning to the WHL, so Hunt made sure there was room for him in trading away then-overaged goaltender Rylan Parenteau and pesky forward Kolten Olynek (who eventually returned to the Raiders that year after he was waived by his hometown Saskatoon Blades). But instead, Gardiner started his professional career with the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins — the AHL affiliate with the Pittsburgh Penguins.

“Three years we got into a situation where we moved Olynek and we moved Parenteau believing that Gardiner would come back and completing the three overages. When Gards signed, it put us in a real predicament,” Hunt said. “We were stuck without a 20 when we had them, now we have to go find a 20… I want to just make sure. You just never know. It’s exciting, guys are going to camp and who knows?”

The Raiders’ camps start on Friday, with three rookie scrimmages from 5 p.m. to 7:45 p.m. The veterans will have a skate from 8 p.m. to 8:45 p.m. The camp will conclude after the annual Green and White Game on Monday at 1 p.m.

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Jeff.dandrea@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @jeff_paNOW