Wheat Kings snag American forwards Nehring, Henricks

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This article was published 26/03/2020 (2082 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Brandon Wheat Kings added a pair of young forwards from the Shattuck-St. Mary’s Tier 1 Sabres bantam team in the Western Hockey League’s inaugural United States prospects draft on Wednesday afternoon.

With the 17th overall pick, the Wheat Kings took six-foot-one, 140-pound forward Zach Nehring of Minot, N.D.

Brandon assistant general manager Doug Gasper said the 15-year-old Nehring is an impressive player.

“He’s a good skater with a really nice scoring touch,” Gasper said. “He has a high level of compete, battles hard in the corners and along the wall and can make plays with the puck. He’s six-one, 150, so he has room to grow yet at only 14.

“He has a nice scoring touch with 46 points in 40 games for a real good Shattuck team this year. The nice thing is that with that compete and edge to his game, he throws in 50 penalty minutes as well.”

The youngster scored 20 goals and added 26 assists last season. With the maternal side of his family from Melita, and the presence of Wheat Kings legend Marty Murray as a high profile coach in Minot, the teenager also has a good understanding of the WHL.

“He knows a lot about the western league, and being from Minot, he knows a lot about the Brandon Wheat Kings,” Gasper said. “He’s very interested in our hockey club.”

With the 28th pick overall, Brandon took six-foot-one, 170-pound Ty Henricks of Mission Viejo, Calif., whose family now lives in Minnesota. The 14-year-old forward scored 37 goals and added 31 assists in 55 games, with 84 minutes in penalties.

“He’s a really big strong forward who skates very well,” Gasper said. “He has a high level of compete and skill. The nice thing with him is he’s another physical, hard to compete against guy.”

The two-round draft, which was done remotely, took just 54 minutes to conduct. It followed a reverse order, with the Red Deer Rebels selecting first in the opening round round and last in the second round.

The Rebels took centre Gracyn Sawchyn with the first pick, a five-foot-eight, 130-pound forward from Minneapolis who posted 83 points in 51 games last season playing with Nehring and Henricks at Shattuck-St. Mary’s.

The Minnesota-based team proved to be popular at the draft, with seven players selected on Wednesday. 

Current Wheat Kings defenceman Vinny Iorio played there before making the jump to the WHL.

“It never hurts to have a player from Shattuck,” Gasper said with a chuckle. “Shattuck is a very good program: A lot of high-end U.S. kids go there with the reputation and history of the program. It’s a very good place to go and develop as a player. Just like the hockey academies here in Canada, they have the track record with a lot of players.”

Because of restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Gasper and general manager Darren Ritchie actually conducted their discussions during the draft via Zoom, an app similar to Skype that allows multiple users to talk and appear on video.

“We’ve very comfortable with the players that we got,” Gasper said. “We did our homework. (Head scout) Mark Johnston was down to the United States a couple of times covering some tournaments for us as well, so that really helped … We had our list ready. It was a good afternoon for the Wheat Kings. 

In other league news on Wednesday, the Regina Pats won the bantam draft lottery and will make the first selection on April 22.

The pick originally belonged to the Swift Current Broncos, but they sent it to the Lethbridge Hurricanes in a blockbuster deal on Jan. 9, 2018. Stuart Skinner, Giorgio Estephan and Tanner Nagel went to Swift Current, which went on to win a championship, in a deal that sent four players and three picks to Lethbridge.

The Hurricanes then traded the top pick to the Pats on Nov. 29, 2018 as part of a package for forwards Jake Leschyshyn and Nick Henry.

In what’s considered to be a deep draft, the top-ranked player is Connor Bedard of North Vancouver, B.C., who has been granted exceptional status by Hockey Canada and will be able to play in the WHL as a 15-year-old. He is the first player in Western Canada to have that opportunity.

Brandon will select 13th in the most unusual bantam draft in the 30-year history of the event. The final player showcases in each province have been scrapped and the draft has been moved up two weeks. It will be conducted remotely instead of in a Calgary hotel, and scouting staffs might not even be able to gather in the same war room.

“Darren and I and the scouting staff are all very comfortable with doing it that way,” Gasper said. “There are no concerns there. To be honest, you would like to see the (showcases) to get that last little one more viewing and to get the guys together, but we’ve done our work and we’re very comfortable moving forward. I don’t think we would ever want to be in a position where we’re relying on the (showcases) to make decisions.

“You’re always tweaking a little bit after that, but you’re pretty set and pretty comfortable with knowing your guys if you’ve done your work through the year. We have a very good staff who are very active so we’re very comfortable.” 

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