The second part of the Western Hockey League's season started on Thursday night, and the regular-season champions started the playoffs with a surprising loss.
The Saskatoon Blades, who ended with 105 points, lost 4-3 to Prince Albert despite having more shots on goal than the Raiders, 44-20.
In the first versus eighth matchup, Prince Albert had 38 fewer points (67) than Saskatoon and 19 fewer wins (51-31).
On Friday, the two teams will meet again, along with the league’s seven other series. That includes what should be the closest matchup of them all: Wenatchee versus Kelowna.
In the Western Conference standings, Wenatchee finished fourth with 72 points, just one point ahead of fifth-place Kelowna.
The Wild will host Games 1 and 2 this Friday and Saturday, with the Rockets hosting Games 3 and 4 next Tuesday and Wednesday.
The two clubs faced each other four times during the regular season, and both teams won twice.
This will be the fifth playoff series between the two franchises.
Realistically, though, it’s the first, as there are zero connections between today and the previous four playoff series that occurred 18 to 22 years ago.
The Wild were previously known as the Kootenay / Winnipeg Ice — a team that started in Edmonton before moving to Cranbrook, B.C., and then to Winnipeg.
Last summer, the group that purchased the Ice from the original owners – the Chynoweth family – and moved it from B.C. to Manitoba sold the club to David and Lisa White of Wenatchee.
The Whites were in charge of a BCHL team with the same name but seized the opportunity to join the WHL.
The last match between the Kootenay Ice and the Rockets was in 2006, which Kelowna won 4-2.
It’s been a busy week for the WHL.
On Thursday, the league announced that it exceeded three million fans during the regular attendance — a first in the post-COVID era.
This past season’s attendance was recorded at 3,076,922, up nearly 100,000 from the 2,913,512 fans in 2022-23.
- 2023-24: 3,076,922
- 2022-23: 2,913,512
- 2021-22: 2,397,588
- 2020-21: COVID bubble season
- 2019-20: 2,882,799
On average, the attendance at a WHL game was 4,114 fans – up from 3,895 in 2022-23 and 3,205 in 2021-22.
But in the decade before COVID, fan attendance averaged between 4,154 and 4,817 per game.
On Wednesday, the Everett Silvertips won what’s been called the Landon Dupont sweepstakes.
The WHL held its annual lottery for the bantam draft in May, and the consensus top pick is Dupont, a 14-year-old from Calgary who’s lighting up the Canadian Sport School Hockey League.
The 5-11 defenceman plays for Edge School’s under-18 prep team and has 19 goals and 62 points in 30 games — good for third in league scoring — despite his age gap.
The two players leading the CSSHL scoring were born in 2006, three years before Dupont was born in 2009.
“When we look at Landon as a player, what we see, and what really pops in this age group, is his skating and edge work,” said Taylor Green, the WHL’s manager of hockey operations.
“He’s so comfortable and able to beat guys on the blue-line, able to shimmy around when he’s exiting the defensive zone. He can really accelerate off his edges like we see so many of those elite defencemen do in today’s game.”
Everett won the lottery on Wednesday, making it the team’s first overall pick in the franchise’s 20-year history.
Prince Albert will choose second, with Tri-City, Kelowna, Edmonton and Calgary following in that order.
When Everett picks Dupont first overall, the teenager will likely be given exceptional status, although this has not been announced yet.
Dupont will turn 15 on May 28. Normally, 15-year-olds can only play five games during the regular season. However, due to his high skill level, he’ll join Connor Bedard as the only other WHL player to be granted exceptional status.
The Everett Herald reported that Silvertips plan on picking Dupont.
“We’ve had plenty of communication with (DuPont),” stated Silvertips CEO Zoran Rajcic. “Mike (Fraser, Everett’s assistant general manager) and Dennis (Williams, the team’s outgoing general manager) have met with his family, and we believe Everett is a good landing spot for him for the next chapter of his hockey career.
“Mike and I will discuss it, but it’s a no-brainer. There’s still work to be done before that, he still has to get exceptional status. But from what I’ve heard from Mike and Dennis he’s a generational player.”
