Blades GM Priestner begins busy off-season from his basement

Colin Priestner is finding new ways to prepare his team for another Western Hockey League (WHL) off-season.

The Saskatoon Blades general manager was in San Francisco earlier this month when COVID-19 was declared a global pandemic. He was taking in a Golden State Warriors game with a half-empty arena and Priestner said he could see the writing on the wall.

“I decided to fly home the next morning and I had sent a text message to a couple of our managers saying ‘I don’t think the Blades are going to play another game this year,’” Priestner said. “I wasn’t trying to be dramatic… it was starting to become really evident that we couldn’t, in good conscious, continue.”

Those events took place on March 11, the night the NBA season was postponed. By the end of the week, most professional leagues across the world were looking at a hiatus or postponement.

The WHL announced an end to the regular season on March 18, still leaving hope for the playoffs and Memorial Cup to be played later in the spring. Those dreams were dashed five days later.

“I don’t know if its hit me,” 21-year-old Blades defencemen Scott Walford said of having his final junior hockey season end prematurely.

“I think it’s going to hit me in August and September when I’m not getting ready to go to a western league hockey camp.”

Due to his international travel, Priestner was forced to isolate for two weeks once he arrived in Saskatoon. Within days, many Blades employees were joining the global effort to work from home.

With Priestner hunkered down in his basement bunker to man off-season operations, his one-year-old daughter, Pala, has created plenty of happy distractions.

“She doesn’t know anything about coronavirus or what’s going on in the world,” Priestner said. “She likes to draw and paint, and jump on the mini trampoline we’ve got in the basement.”

Priestner and the rest of his scouting staff were instantly put to work with the WHL Bantam Draft Lottery and the inaugural WHL U.S. Prospects Draft last Wednesday.

Saskatoon stayed pat with the fifth pick in the upcoming draft, which was moved ahead by two weeks to April 22. Instead of taking place in Red Deer with all the teams in attendance, it will be done virtually and streamed live on the league’s website.

It’s just one of the many changes Priestner is reacting to.

“Instead of having all those cups where we get to meet with pretty much every player and family we want to over those three or four weekends, we’re doing that all over the phone and Skype now, so it’s totally a different world for us,” he said.

The Regina Pats will select first and have already confirmed they will take the WHL’s first exceptional status player Connor Bedard with the pick. The special status allows Bedard to play in the WHL full-time as a 15-year-old.

While Priestner isn’t thrilled one of the best rookies in the country will be playing in his division, the Blades pick at no. 5 should land them a skilled player in what’s considered to be one of the deepest draft pools in recent memory.

“I think it’s the best draft I’ve ever seen in my seven years,” Priestner said. “Picking in the top five this year is a different animal than some years. The player we get at five could be a number one or two pick any other year.”

Priestner added the Blades’ other three picks in the top three rounds would go much higher other years.

“We’re hoping to have four or five really, really good players that almost have a chance to play (for the Blades) at 16, which is rare, but this year’s draft is so good that it’s realistic.”

The California pipeline

The U.S. Prospects Draft on Wednesday was part of the WHL’s effort to expand south of the border. While drafting American players isn’t anything new to junior teams in Canada, it has remained a risk as Americans tend to favour the collegiate route, which keeps them ineligible to player major junior hockey in Canada.

So rather than take a flier pick on an American in the eleventh round hoping you can convince them to play later on, league brass figured a draft specifically for U.S prospects can create support early on.

“I do know that every single top-end American kid in the region that we draft from was talking about this draft among themselves, their agents and their families about where they might go in our draft, and that’s something that we’ve never had before,” Priestner said, hoping that improves the rate of players he can recruit.

Saskatoon selected Ze’ev Buium and Brenden Fields out of California. Priestner sees the sunny state as an untapped market for his team.

“It’s really interesting for us to have this new pipeline in California that we’ve kind of built over the last few seasons,” Priestner said.

Pavel “Pasha” Bocharov was the reason Priestner was in San Fransisco earlier in March. Priestner convinced the defenceman from California to sign a player agreement with the team this week. Bocharov was selected by the Blades in the 8th round of the 2019 WHL Bantam Draft, and Priestner said he would have went much higher in the draft if he were Canadian.

“That’s something we really benefited from there,” Priestner said, mentioning other American players that were drafted and didn’t even pick up the phone once they were drafted.

Bocharov is expected to compete for a roster spot in September. Until then, Priestner is continuing his draft preparations from his new basement office.