Jeremy Masella, from Phoenix, AZ, was one of two Americans on the Raider roster this season. The club will be adding two more U.S.-born prospects to the pipeline tomorrow. (Jeff D'Andrea/paNOW Staff)

By Trevor Redden

South of the Border

Raiders ready to add talent in inaugural U.S. Prospects Draft

Mar 24, 2020 | 2:00 PM

The inaugural WHL U.S. Prospects Draft will be held as scheduled on Wednesday, with the 22 member clubs gathering online to make their selections.

Up to now, American players have been welcomed into the league through the standard bantam draft along with all other North American prospects, or by the process of listing undrafted players.

Raiders general manager Curtis Hunt believes the new draft gives teams a better opportunity to focus on American players, who may have otherwise been perceived as risky.

“What I really like about it is we’re going to draft players where they should be drafted. A lot of times with the larger North American bantam draft, there’s some reluctancy on drafting an American player because of the challenges [of recruiting and selling them on the league], in some of their cases the [Canadian] options have had better access and better exposure,” Hunt said.

The selection order was generated randomly through a lottery process earlier in the season, and Prince Albert was assigned the fifth and 40^th overall selections in the two-round draft. Having a top-five pick has provided the club with an opportunity to narrow its focus.

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“[Picking fifth] really allowed us an opportunity to hone in on a guy and get to know him a little bit, get to know a little bit more about him, and that helps the player get to know us a little more and what we’re all about, and that’s an advantage for the club,” Hunt said.

While Prince Albert has selected an American-born player in each of the last seven bantam drafts, none of those players have played a single game in a Raider uniform. The two most recent picks were Matthew Gross [141^st overall, 2018] and Tyler Dysart [88^th overall, 2019], players who the Raiders are both still trying to recruit to the club.

Although Prince Albert hasn’t been able to attract American players through the draft, there have been several prominent players from south of the border in recent years acquired via trade.

Of the three 20-year-old players on this year’s team, two are American with Brayden Watts hailing for Bakersfield, CA, and Jeremy Masella from Phoenix, AZ.

Hunt suggested the primary challenge in attracting American-born players to the club is a lack of awareness and understanding, something he hopes is improved through this process and the recently held WHL U.S. Challenge Cup in Kent, WA.

The tournament took place from Feb. 20 to 23, featuring 12 of the top-ranked Bantam teams from the western United States and Canada.

“We had a Portland and Seattle [WHL] game in Seattle that Seattle won late. That was a fantastic hockey game. On top of that, the Seattle Thunderbirds put on a fantastic weekend in terms of hosting the event for the players, and we were able to get in front of them and talk about how every single player on my roster has a scholarship. We just set it aside and we focus on hockey,” Hunt said.

“I think that gave us an opportunity for a little better understanding for those parents and those players to go ‘oh this makes sense, that’s why they do it this way.”

Wednesday’s U.S. draft will provide a welcome distraction for WHL executives across the league after Monday’s announcement to officially cancel the 2020 playoffs and Memorial Cup.

“We’re all in the same boat. It’s a sad day saying goodbye to the season. Especially with the opportunity I think our club was positioned for, and of course the over-age players,” Hunt said.

“But we start the first-ever U.S. Draft tomorrow, we carry on with the bantam draft and the European draft, and we’ll look for brighter days ahead to get the big green machine rolling again in the fall.”

Event updates announced

On Tuesday, the WHL confirmed that the 2020 Bantam Draft Lottery will proceed as scheduled at 11 a.m. MT at league office in Calgary, and the U.S. Prospects Draft will be conducted online at 2 p.m. MT.

Both the 2020 WHL Awards and 2020 WHL Bantam Draft, previously scheduled to be hosted live in Red Deer, Alta. on May 6 and 7, have been cancelled as a result of concerns relating to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The 2020 WHL Bantam Draft will now be conducted online on Wednesday, April 22.

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trevor.redden@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @Trevor_Redden