Warriors’ Ripplinger looking forward to Prospects Draft on Thursday

In a normal year, the 2021 Western Hockey League Prospects Draft would be long in the rearview mirror, with players having been selected by their respective WHL teams this past spring and well into their 15-year-old seasons with their respective AAA and hockey academy schools.

But as is the case with so many things during the coronavirus pandemic, the 2021 Draft was delayed until Dec. 9, meaning general managers and their scouting crews have been hard at work in recent days, weeks and months putting together draft lists any way they can.

It’ll all come to fruition beginning at 11 a.m. when the league’s 22 teams select over 200 2006-born players from all over western Canada and the U.S.

“It’s an interesting one,” said Warriors general manager Jason Ripplinger. “Last year we didn’t get a chance to get out and do a lot of scouting, but this summer we had a chance to watch these guys a bit. Then throughout the last three or four months, our scouts and myself have been out watching these guys and getting as many viewings as possible. So we’ve done our list and we’re ready to go.”

Saskatoon’s Berkly Catton is the defacto number one pick for the draft, with the Spokane Chiefs holding the first-overall pick. The Warriors would have picked fourth overall, but that pick was sent to Brandon in the Kale Clague trade-deadline deal in January 2018.

Instead, the Warriors will have Saskatoon’s 16th overall pick and will pick 27th and 25th overall in the second round. The remainder of their picks are third round 50th overall, fourth round 72nd overall, eighth round 160th and 161st overall, ninth round 182nd overall, 10th round 204th overall and 11th round 226th overall.

Ripplinger feels that even with the later first-round pick, there should still be lots of talent to go around.

“Overall, I think it’s pretty deep,” Ripplinger said. “There are a lot of high end players and quite a bit of depth and at the end of the day, you’re three, four years away from seeing how it all pans out, but with the number of picks we have in the early going, we have to be bang on to help the franchise to move on again.”

The WHL Prospects Draft will be livestreamed on WHL Live on CHL TV free of charge. The Pre-Draft Show begins at 10:30 a.m., followed by the first round of the Draft at 11 a.m.. You can follow along on WHL.ca or at watch.chl.ca.