MOOSE JAW -- It was a busy week for Moose Jaw Warriors' general manager Jason Ripplinger, and while it might be a couple years before we know for absolute sure, ideally an extremely successful one.
The Warriors added 12 new players through the U.S. Priority and Prospects Drafts on Wednesday and Thursday, stocking the roster with talent the team hopes will bring plenty of success to the Western Hockey League club in the near future.
It started on Wednesday morning when the Warriors picked R.J. Thompson with the second overall selection in the U.S. Priority Draft.
The Warriors scouting staff had seen Thompson in action a few times during the season, and based on the Detroit Little Caesars prospect’s body of work, Ripplinger felt the decision was clear.
The biggest question now is if a player of Thompson’s calibre will be willing to make the jump across the border to the WHL.
“I've had some long conversations with his dad, just to try to sell the program, send him some videos,” Ripplinger said. “Americans' dreams are to go to the National Development Team. So I'm pretty sure it'll be his first priority, but at the end of the day, if Moose Jaw is an option for him, we'll for sure welcome him.”
Interestingly enough, Ripplinger had a small bit of help selling Thompson on Moose Jaw. Thompson played on Western Canada Prime at the World Selects International U15 tournament this past spring and happened to take the ice alongside the younger brother of a rather well known former Warrior.
“He happened to play with Denton Mateychuk’s younger brother Crosby during the Philadelphia tournament here just this past spring,” Ripplinger said. “And obviously, Crosby had nothing but good things to say about Moose Jaw.”
That all led into the first round of the WHL Prospects Draft, and one of the most trade filled examples of that event in recent history.
The Warriors kept to their own, though and ended up selecting Humboldt U15 AA forward Kash Elke with the 18th overall pick, a player the team was naturally very high on heading into the draft.
“I see a lot of tendencies of someone like (Warriors captain) Lynden Lakovic,” Ripplinger said. “I think he's a big, skilled forward who's got a good hockey IQ and he can score and make plays. He wasn't on a very good team this year, so he had to do a lot of it himself.”
The idea is that once Elke is surrounded with WHL talent, his production will go through the roof.
“He's putting up points, he's not playing with as high caliber players, so eventually when he gets to your team, you have to look at it as he'll be playing with better players on the Warriors,” Ripplinger said. “So you expect higher expectations for him.”
The remainder of the draft saw a bit of a theme for the higher picks as Ripplinger and crew looked to bring in more size to the team while also filling a few needs on defence.
“I wanted to get a little bit bigger, and I also wanted to find some left-handed shot defensemen,” he said. “The right-hand shots are talented enough that they can play on the left side, but it's always nice to have the left-handed shots who are talented and natural at that position.”
On a whole, Ripplinger was more than happy with how the Drafts turned out, adding that now the real hard work begins.
“Now it's entirely up to the players and the coaches,” he said. “The players have to put in the work, and the coaches have to help develop these guys, and I think moving forward, if the players who we drafted are going to be the players that we think they're going to be, I mean, we'll come out of here good.”
Things calm down for a while leading up to the CHL Import Draft on Wednesday, July 2, and it will be a historic one, as the Warriors have a chance to select an immediate impact player with the first overall pick. The key will be finding a player where all the circumstances work in Moose Jaw’s favour.
“Obviously, it's a big pick,” Ripplinger said. “It's agent-driven, so you don't sometimes get the player that the London Knights and the other teams out east get, but we'll do our best to try to get a high-end player.”
