A moratorium on trades over the Christmas season began Dec. 17 and ends on Wednesday, but you can be guaranteed that with the trade deadline looming on Jan. 10 that cellphones were ringing over the Western Hockey League break.
“I found over the past years that’s the time where people are talking the most because there’s nothing you can do, so you have a date that you’re working towards to make some sort of change after the break,” said Victoria Royals general manager Cam Hope.
The Royals’ GM has already been bust this month, pulling off an significant deal. Hope often beats the rush and pulls the trigger early and 2017-18 was no different as he sent Ryan Peckford to Moose Jaw for Noah Gregor with some draft picks to be swapped in the deal.
“Sometimes I don’t do anything at all,” Hope chuckled. “I’m like the guy at the high school dance, who says I ask everyone to dance and sometimes I don’t get anyone. One thing that I did learn in high school, though, is you better start early.”
With Regan Nagy and Dante Hannoun out of the lineup due to injury and illness, respectively, the Royals have not been at full strength. Tyler Soy also left the last game before the break with an injury to be outlined once the team returns from the break.
“We’ll see what happens, we’re down a couple guys right now so it’s hard to know exactly what we have because of injuries right now. We’ve got a really good veteran team and it’s just a matter of seeing if there’s anything we can add to make this group even better. We’ll see,” he said.
Nagy’s out until at least the first week of January and Hannoun could be out for a few more weeks as well. As for Soy? That could be a costly shoulder injury.
Hope will have to make one move for sure when Nagy returns as he will be one 20-year-old over the limit as he added defenceman Kade Jensen earlier in the season.
“Eventually, yeah,” he said of having to deal with his over-age situation. “Sometimes these things take care of themselves, right. You can see around the league that guys are getting injured and people have to scramble with their 20s.”
As for getting back to work on Wednesday at home at Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre against the visiting Prince George Cougars in the first of back-to-back mid-week games, Hope said the break was a good one.
“This year is nice in that it’s a little bit longer break because of how the dates fell,” he said. “It does give guys a longer opportunity to get away for a full week, which is kind of rare. Even including the travel days, they should have a nice rest.”
As for facing the Cougars in the annual return from Christmas, Hope said: “I think Prince George likes that because they can bring all the guys back in through Vancouver and it saves wear and tear on everybody.”
