By Jeff D'Andrea

Yaremchuk back to Mintos after stint with Raiders

Nov 15, 2013 | 5:42 AM

The bad news for Lance Yaremchuk is he got reassigned from his hometown WHL team — which the Prince Albert Raiders announced on Tuesday.

The good news is he only has to move his equipment down the hall.

Yaremchuk has officially returned to the Prince Albert Mintos Midget AAA hockey club, where he has 50 goals and 84 points in 87 games with the Mintos over the last two seasons.

“I’m happy to be back with the Mintos. They’ve always treated me well here for the past two years,” said the 17-year-old Yaremchuk before Thursday’s Mintos practice.

“I wasn’t playing very much with the Raiders, but it was still a great experience and a fun time with them.

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“I’m back with the Mintos, hopefully I light it up here for the rest of the season and hopefully be back with the Raiders next year.”

To say Yaremchuk is a welcome addition to the Mintos would be an understatement. While they are the best defensive team in the SMAAAHL, the one thing the Mintos have had trouble with this year is scoring goals, ranking third-worst in the league and averaging just 2.67 goals per game. (They have gotten better recently, averaging 3.5 goals in their last four games).

That’s where Yaremchuk will come in. As a 16-year-old last season, Yaremchuk led the league in goals with 38 goals in 44 regular season games, while adding another nine goals in as many playoff games.

“All the boys, the coaches and everybody are really happy to have him back,” said Mintos head coach Ken Morrison. “We’re pretty excited.”

When things didn’t work out with the Raiders, Yaremchuk had to decide whether he would return to the Mintos and play Midget AAA again, or to report to the Flin Flon Bombers of the SJHL, the team that owns his Junior A rights.

With how well he was treated as a Minto and the interest they’ve showed in his return, Yaremchuk thought it would be the best fit to stay in Prince Albert.

“I knew Kenny really wanted me back and I knew I’d play lots here,” said Yaremchuk. “With Flin Flon, I’d have no trouble moving and going to Flin Flon, it’s Junior A and it’s a good league as well. I know they have a lot of good 20-year-olds on their team and I just don’t want to end up sitting there like I did with the Raiders. It would be a waste of a season for me.

“I thought since my first quarter of the season with the Raiders wasn’t what I was hoping for. If I came back to the Mintos and played all the time, I’d build up a lot more confidence.”

After being scratched for the first six games of the season, Yaremchuk made a good first impression with the Raiders after finally getting some playing time. He scored three points in his first two games, getting an assist in his first period of his WHL career on Oct. 5 in a 5-2 loss to the Swift Current Broncos. Then in his first WHL game at the Art Hauser Centre on Oct. 8, Yaremchuk scored his first WHL goal and added an assist in a 4-3 shootout win over the Vancouver Giants.

That’s all Yaremchuk would produce as he appeared in just eight games for the Raiders and was a healthy scratch for the other 13.

“(Getting scratched) was definitely frustrating but obviously I don’t want to be selfish about it,” said Yaremchuk. “I know it was for the goodness of the team, that whatever Cory (Clouston, Raiders head coach) decided who played and who didn’t, I understood that.

“It was frustrating personally to me, but how well the team does is what matters.”

Although he would have liked to have had a bigger role on the team, Yaremchuk looks on his experience with the Raiders as a good one, especially hanging with the team and Raiders assistant coach Tim Leonard and associate coach Dave Manson, who coached Yaremchuk in his first year as a Minto in 2011-2012.

“I had lots of fun with the guys, all the guys on that team are great guys,” said Yaremchuk. “They always made me feel like I was part of the team even when I was healthied. It’s hard to get in with the team when you’re healthied for games and just come in for practices, but the guys were great to me. Tim and Dave always supported me the best they could and tried to get me motivated to always play my best in practice. It was a great time with them.

“It’s the WHL, there’s not much you can’t like.”

But being a Minto isn’t all bad, either.

Yaremchuk and the Mintos will head to Swift Current to play the Legionnaires (3-11-2-0, 11th out of 12 teams) on Saturday and Sunday. They will return home to face the Battlefords Stars (11-2-2-1, first overall) on Nov. 21.

jdandrea@panow.com

On Twitter: @jeff_dandrea