Wheat Kings acquire speedy veteran Marcus Nguyen

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This article was published 06/06/2024 (712 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Brandon Wheat Kings added veteran forward Marcus Nguyen from the Portland Winterhawks on Wednesday in return for a young player whose family decided he would be better off playing closer to home.

The Wheat Kings landed the five-foot-10, 180-pound Nguyen, who had 56 points in 66 Western Hockey League games last season, in return for Reed Brown, an Arizona product who was taken sixth overall by the Wheat Kings during the 2023 U.S. Priority draft.

“He’s scratching the surface and just taking off here,” Wheat Kings head coach and general manager Marty Murray said of Nguyen, who turns 20 in August and is entering his overage season. “I think he showed that in the playoffs. I think you’re always gauging in the hard times like playoffs for hockey players, and I thought he took it to another level.

“He was second on their team, a real strong offensive team, in playoff scoring and led their team in goals. These are at critical times of the year when things are clamped down so that’s one appealing thing.

“The key to his game is speed and tenacity on the puck and he has a sneaky skillset as well.”

Nguyen, whose surname is pronounced “win,” has scored at least 20 goals in the last three seasons and has 70 goals and 74 assists in 216 regular season games.

In the playoffs, he had eight goals and nine assists in 18 games, behind only former Wheat Kings captain Nate Danielson, who was his linemate.

“I’m excited,” Murray said. “I think he’s going to have a pretty good year for us.”

Nguyen’s addition brings Brandon’s overage contingent to four, with defenceman Luke Shipley and forwards Rylen Roersma and Nolan Flamand also in the mix.

“Just having three is probably appealing but he’s a player who is going to be a good player in the league,” Murray said. “… we’ll have a very tough decision to make but at the end of the day, it creates good healthy internal competition.”

The team’s other players entering their overage season are Russian defenceman Andrei Maliavan — he would be a “two-spotter” who fills both an import and overage spot, something teams generally try to avoid unless a player is especially impactful — and rugged forward Matt Henry, who failed to produce a point in 37 games while being suspended six times. Henry is expected to turn pro.

Nguyen found out about the trade on Tuesday when he received a call from Winterhawks head coach and general manager Mike Johnston, the former member of the Brandon Bobcats hockey team.

“He explained what was going on with the overagers and everything,” Nguyen said. “I had an idea talking to my agent, realizing last year for us in Portland was our year to go for it, and the next year following up was going to be more like a rebuild phase.”

Nguyen will be added to a deep Brandon forward group that seems to be on the edge of an upswing, which he said helped with the news. While Nguyen knew something could be coming, the timing was a shock as had to say goodbye to the place he spent the last four seasons.

“It was a whirlwind of emotions,” Nguyen said. “It caught me a little off guard. I wasn’t expecting it. Earlier that day I was talking to my agent about a couple of NHL teams who had interest in [development] camp and fall camp, and then we talked about the overager situation. He had no idea as well what was coming up in the next couple of hours and then I got the phone call from Mike.”

Nguyen had his second phone call with a WHL head coach and general manager soon after when Murray reached out. He said they had a good chat.

“He explained to me how excited the organization and he was to have me,” Nguyen said. “I explained the exact same thing back. I’m super excited to be a part of Brandon and the Wheat Kings organization. I was hearing all the good things about it, and being close with Danny [Danielson] when he came over from Brandon, and hearing all the good things and how different it was.

“Marty explained I’m going to be that next guy for them and help lead the team.”

Murray had the same sense of the conversation.

“He was really excited,” Murray said. “He said he’s heard nothing but great things about the organization from Nate, so that’s encouraging and I was happy to hear that. He was really excited and pumped to be coming our way.”

On the other side of the ledger, Brandon had to make the best of a bad situation by dealing a young player they liked.

Brown, a 16-year-old Tempe product, played for Okanagan Hockey Academy Colorado’s 15U AAA program last season, leading the team in scoring with 34 goals in 48 games while adding 23 assists.

“When the U.S. drafts take place, it’s a little bit of a crapshoot,” Murray said. “You never know how it’s going to end up. We had Reed at camp last fall and it got to the point where the family wanted him closer to home, kind of a direct flight scenario and it just didn’t work out with Brandon for them, which is disappointing but at the same time, it’s part of the business.

“For us, we had to make a couple of decisions. He could sit and rot on our list like some of the U.S. guys have in the past, or we could try to make something out of it and use him as an asset to make our team better, and I think we accomplished that.”

Brandon has never picked a player in the five U.S. Priority drafts who skated for them, although forward Matteo Michels was selected by the Regina Pats in 2020 and acquired by the Wheat Kings last season for Tony Wilson in a one-for-one deal on Nov. 13.

However, this is the second time Brandon has managed to use a U.S. Priority draft selection as trade capital, and coincidentally, it involved Portland both times.

On Jan. 10, 2023, Brandon acquired forward Dawson Pasternak with a conditional fourth-round pick for the rights to Colin Frank, a second-round pick in 2026 and a sixth-round pick in 2025.

Frank, who is now 18, was Brandon’s first-round American pick in 2021 and has committed to the University of Connecticut for the 2025-26 season.

“If you look at it that way, it’s a success,” Murray said. “When we draft players, we draft them to hopefully be on our roster someday, but when that doesn’t happen, most of the time those guys fade into the sunset but for a player like Reed, who I think is going to be a good player, at least we get something for him.”

Brandon has an influx of young signed forwards coming in trying to earn a spot next season, including 2007-born Brady Turko and Easton Odut and 2008-born Jaxon Jacobson and Isaac Davies. Along with who they received for him, that makes Brown’s loss a bit more palatable.

“We anticipated Reed maybe being one of those guys in there too to help us along, but things don’t work sometimes the way you forecast,” Murray said. “When we talked about moving him, Marcus was a player we talked about and watched in the playoffs. The success he had in the playoffs made him a targeted player to get in return.”

In other recent team news, the Wheat Kings signed first-round pick Chase Surkan to a WHL scholarship and development agreement on May 30, getting a commitment from the high-scoring Regina forward. Murray said it was nice to have that completed.

“It’s huge,” Murray said. “You invest a lot in a first-round draft pick so you do your due diligence before the draft to make sure they’re on board with playing in the Western Hockey League and with our club, and Chase was real excited to be drafted by us. It’s nice to get him sewn up, and add him to our talented young forwards coming our way.”

Meanwhile, on Tuesday the league announced Brandon will open against the defending champion Moose Jaw Warriors on Sept. 20, and they’ll visit the Regina Pats a night later for their home opener at the Brandt Centre.

It’s another signal the 2024-25 campaign is inching closer.

“I think when the calendar switches to June, it makes you realize you’re a couple months away from being at it and getting on the ice,” Murray said. “You think you have a lot of time but it’s going to be fast approaching. I’m looking forward to a real competitive camp.”

ICINGS: The first WHL waiver period begins on June 12 … The next major event on the calendar for the Wheat Kings is the Canadian Hockey League’s import draft on July 3 at 10 a.m. (CDT). Brandon picks 41st in the first round, and while they hold the 101st pick in the second round, they’re anticipating the return of Czech forward Dominik Petr so they won’t be using it … The two-day National Hockey League draft starts on June 28 in Las Vegas.

For a full story on Marcus Nguyen, see Friday’s edition of The Brandon Sun.

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