Brandon acquires McGregor in three-way deal

The Brandon Wheat Kings acquired local defenceman Josh McGregor in a three-way trade announced Thursday morning.

The Wheat Kings picked up the Brandonite from the Swift Current Broncos with a seventh-round Western Hockey League draft pick in 2028 from the Lethbridge Hurricanes.

Swift Current received 19-year-old forward Hudson Kibblewhite while Lethbridge walked away with the rights to 19-year-old defenceman Jake Stuart and Brandon’s fifth-round pick in 2028.

It was a popular move with McGregor, who found out about the deal on Wednesday afternoon.

“It was pretty cool to go to Brandon,” McGregor said. “You grow up there watching the Wheat Kings play and you dream of playing for the team so it’s awesome I can actually play for them.”

Brandon head coach and general manager Marty Murray said it was a good deal for all three teams.

“It just kind of fit everybody’s needs,” Murray said. “To be honest, Josh is a guy who we’ve had in interest in for quite some time and it just came to fruition. We felt he could help our back end and it just happened to be that we had Jake Stuart, who we drafted a few years back and he indicated he didn’t want to come to Brandon and was just sitting on our list.

“Lethbridge has the younger brother so it made sense for them to try to acquire Jake and bring them both in as a package.

“For Swift Current, the forward who came available is someone who really interested them. Kibblewhite is a good player too. He’s a guy we would have had interest in, we just felt Josh solidified our back end a little more, and being a player we know being in our backyard, he’s a local kid and it made sense for us.”

Brandon drafted Stuart second overall in the U.S. Priority draft in 2022, but the son of former Regina Pat and longtime National Hockey League defenceman Brad Stuart had no interest in Brandon. His younger brother, an 18-year-old forward named Logan, was taken in the 2023 U.S. Priority draft by the Hurricanes.

Brad spent last season in the USHL and is committed to the University of Denver for next season, while Logan played with the American national team program for the past two winters.

The six-foot-one, 176-pound Kibblewhite, a product of Vernon, B.C., had 29 points in 53 games with Lethbridge last season after two years with the Saskatoon Blades.

Murray said there has been a bit of discussion among GMs following the draft, including with a new face. After Elkhorn product Chad Leslie resigned as Swift Current’s GM to take back his old position as head scout, Travis Crickard, was hired as the team’s new general manager and head coach on April 24.

“Leading up to the draft there are a lot of conversations, and there are certainly conversations happening, but I think it’s somewhat quiet,” Murray said. “Guys are getting prepared for the European draft and we have meeting next week out in Kelowna. I’m sure everybody will have conversations out there as well.”

The left-shooting McGregor, who turns 19 next month, has played 125 career WHL games over two seasons, with 36 points and 96 penalty minutes.

The six-foot-three, 173-pound McGregor played one season with the U15 AAA Wheat Kings, spent two seasons at Winnipeg’s Rink Hockey Academy, and then was part of Brandon’s sensational U18 AAA club in 2023-24 that went all the way to the Telus Cup final.

In his early years he went to a lot of WHL games, including in Brandon’s 2015-16 championship season, and pictured himself in the lineup one day.

“It was such a dream,” McGregor said. “In 2016, I would go in my Nolan Patrick jersey and sit up with my dad and get a little Pizza Hut thingie and watch all the games.”

Brandon’s crowded blue-line for next season now potentially includes overager Dylan Ronald, 19-year-olds McGregor and Daniil Skvortsov, 18-year-olds Gio Pantelas, Nigel Boehm, Cameron Allard and maybe Finnish defenceman Samu Alalauri, 17-year-old prospects Ethan Young and Easten Turko and 16-year-old Cruz Jim.

Alalauri, who is ranked 17th among European skaters by the National Hockey League’s Central Scouting, is committed to the University of Massachusetts for the 2027-28 season.

McGregor, who thought he might get traded this summer, can’t wait to get started.

“I’m super motivated,” McGregor said. “I’m going to train really hard this summer. It will exciting playing at home and seeing how we do. It should be a pretty good team.”

» pbergson@brandonsun.com