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Wheat Kings makes pair of big deals, including landing Langley lad Anderson

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saskatoon aspx1 Wheat Kings makes pair of big deals, including landing Langley lad Anderson

 

If I had bet money on where Brandon Anderson was going to end up when the Lethbridge Hurricanes got around to straightening out their goalie situation, I would have been out a few bucks.

Anderson, 19, the Langley native who already has a contract with the Washington Capitals, was moved Sunday by Lethbridge to the Brandon Wheat Kings.

Lethbridge, who already brought in overage netminder Damien Ketlo from the Regina Pats, received netminder Liam Liston, 18, and defenceman Spencer Galbraith, 18, from Brandon.

Where did I think he was going? The Kamloops Blazers. The Blazers, off to a 7-2 start, have three lines that can score, puck movers in the back with Austin Madaisky and Bronson Maschmeyer and a big, nasty dude in Josh Caron that will make the opposition think twice about rough stuff. They have a general manager, too, in Craig Bonner, who hasn’t been afraid of making the major deal.

They don’t have a marquee goalie in the trio of Cam Lanigan, 19, Cole Cheveldave, 18, and Taran Kozun, 17.

Word is, though, that Bonner is happy with his netminders. Cheveldave, a rookie who played last year with the Drumheller Dragons of the AJHL, has been particularly good: 4-0, 1.50 goals against, .937 save percentage.

The fact is that there’s not a lot of proven netminders in the WHL right now. It’s not like a few years ago, when there was Sexsmith, Tokarski, Pickard, Irving, Reimer, Jones.

As for Anderson, a lot of his cache comes from the free-agent deal with the Capitals. Of course, he’s been a victim of a sad-sack Lethbridge team, too. All told, he has a career 31-49-15 record, a goals against average of 3.63 and a .890 save percentage in the WHL.

He’s bound to play next year in the minors, so giving up two 18 years old for a one-year guy — and third and sixth round bantam picks in 2012 — is pricey, but Brandon general manager Kelly McCrimmon obviously thinks he has a team capable of making a run. Besides Anderson, they also picked up on Sunday overage left winger Darian Dziurzynski from the Saskatoon Blades for three bantam draft picks — a second in 2012, a second in 2013, and a third in 2014.

Dziurzynski, who’s from Lloydminster, Alta., had 35 goals last year with the Blades, but they were one over the WHL three overage limit. Saskatoon, who recently got the nod to be the 2013 Memorial Cup hosts, will use those picks to land talent for next year.

 

 



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