Wheat Kings - PR

Shock Swap in Sas'toon

The Saskatchewan Wheat Kings and Saskatoon Saints completed one of the largest deals in TFHL history Thursday with both teams seeing their current rosters and prospects, both immediate and long term, significantly altered.

Heading from Kingship to Sainthood are the one-time Wheatie go-to guy Keith Tkachuk, disappointing young guns Jakub Hulva, Andrei Kostitsyn, Rosario Ruggeri, back-up Manny Legace, prospect Tuuka Rask, and picks in the year 17 draft. Joining the royal family are youngsters Lance Monych, Konstantin Glazachev, veteran Martin Cibak, prospects James Howard and Drew Stafford, the Saints top two picks in year 18, and the key to the deal, Ilja Bryzgalov. A couple days later the Kings shipped Martin Cibak to the Hurricanes for Bill Guerin.

"This deal was no doubt shocking, likely even more-so the our preseason Luongo deal," GM Tyler Young commented to the media. "But I've been trying to work on deals for the last while that would accomplish what this deal did in the end. As I said after the Luongo trade our current success is very much ahead of our plans and that despite our standing, and our desire to continue it, we would not waver from the rebuilding plan on which we set out at the beginning of last season. So with that plan in mind, the primary concern was our longterm goaltending situation: there are so few quality goaltenders twenty-five and under in this league that having one basically guarantees a team's future success in three or so years, the very point at which our team should be peaking. Moreover, I was worried about our financial situation and our ability to maintain our core - these two deals allows us that promise of stability. Dmitri Kazionov, Steve Bernier, Josh Hennesy, Dan Sprang, Matt
Jones, and now Ilja Bryzgalov will be our team for the next decade; this deal not only allows us to add one more player to that core group in a critical position without giving up any core players, but also allows us the financial leeway to keep that group together for a long, long time."

While the arrival of Bryzgalov and Monych help solidify the Kings' defensive ability, the loss of a proven scorer like Tkachuk and gifted, although not overly reliable nor productive, snipers Hulva and Kostitsyn could seriously comprimise the Wheaties offensive prowess.

"Yes, we will suffer some loss of goals for," Mr. Young stated in response to this concern. "But I do believe the reacquisition of Bill Guerin will fill the hole made by the departure of Tkachuk, plus I do think that Glazachev and Monych were somewhat underperforming on the Saints, so we will get some goals from them. Plus we have players like Daymond Langkow, Eric Fehr, and Josh Henessy, who given more opportunities, should respond well. So in the end our hope is that in the immediate future the loss of goals will not be devastating, and will be moreover counter-acted by improved defensive proficiency. In the long term our hope, given the youthful nature of our roster, is that the offence will continue to grow into its own as it matures and will continue to give us the high level of play, of which we have now grown accustomed."