Forward Vladislav Shyla was selected 45th overall by the Raiders in the 2020 CHL Import Draft after skating with the Belarusian U18 team last season. (Prince Albert Raiders)

By Trevor Redden

Belarus Boost

Raiders pick Belarusian forward Shyla in Import Draft

Jun 30, 2020 | 11:59 AM

It seems Prince Albert will remain home to the unofficial Belarusian embassy of the Western Hockey League again this year.

With the 45^th overall pick in the 2020 CHL Import Draft Tuesday morning, the Raiders selected Minsk native Vladislav Shyla. The 2003-born forward was selected after a 19-point season with the U18 Belarus team in Belarus’ Extraliga B last year.

“I love his skating ability. Very good hockey sense. In the videos we watched of him playing, a really good 200-foot player. Responsible at both ends of the ice,” Raiders General Manager Curtis Hunt said after the draft. “[He] was playing with older players as is the case with a lot of these import players and was contributing in an offensive role, and certainly at international tournaments where competition is better.”

Listed at five-foot-nine and 147 pounds, Shyla could become the fifth Belarusian player to put on a Raider uniform in the last three seasons, as the club has boasted Sergei Sapego, Aliaksei Protas, dual-citizen Ilya Usau, and Daniil Stepanov in the past two seasons.

His home country was by no means the deciding factor, but Hunt acknowledged there can be some benefit to having multiple players from the same place. He pointed to recent Belarusian Raiders who have spent time in schools volunteering with Russian-speaking kids whose families have moved to Prince Albert.

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“It was good for our players getting out in the community…be able to give back a bit, be able to learn the English language a little bit better, and at the same time help some other kids that were here for other reasons,” Hunt said.

The expectation now is Protas will return to the Raiders for his 19-year-old season, with he and Shyla filling the two available import spots. The club did not use their second selection for that reason. The only scenario that would prevent Protas from returning would be if he made the jump to the NHL’s Washington Capitals, but that is unlikely.

As an American-Belarusian, Usau does not occupy an import spot.

The Swift Current Broncos had the highest pick among WHL teams, selecting Slovakian defenceman Oliver Fatul with the third-overall pick. Fatul is ranked 70^th among European Skaters by NHL Central Scouting for the 2020 NHL Draft.

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trevor.redden@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @Trevor_Redden