By Brian Swane /
Edmonton Oil Kings general manager Bob Green didn’t wait long to add a new body to his lineup.
The Oil Kings had played just four games in their inaugural Western Hockey League season when Green acquired promising 17-year-old blueliner Adrian Van de Mosselaer from the Medicine Hat Tigers in exchange for a sixth-round pick in the 2008 WHL bantam draft.
Green wasn’t necessarily looking to swing a trade, but he wasn’t hesitant to pull the trigger, either.
“At the start of the year, we knew we were going to have to find some younger defencemen who we thought could play down the road, develop into pretty good players,” the GM said moments after the deal went down Oct. 2.
“ So we’ve always been on the lookout for them and the situation just happened to come up,”
Van de Mosselaer played 32 games with the Okanogan Rockets of the British Columbia Major Midget Hockey League last season, recording three goals and 26 assists, while racking up100 penalty minutes.
He recently saw exhibition action with the Tigers.
“He’s a big, strong kid, right-handed shot, moves the puck very well with a good first pass,” Green said of the Kelowna, B.C., product. “(He’s) not afraid to play the physical game, he’ll get involved physically and he’s effective in the offensive zone as well.”
At 6-2 and 195 pounds, Van de Mooselaer adds size to a deep defensive unit that includes WHL veterans Cameron Cepek, Michael Hengen, Matt Swaby and Bretton Stammler. He was to join the active roster immediately.
To make room for Van de Mosselaer, Edmonton assigned rearguard Karl Benke to the Grande Prairie Storm of the Alberta Junior Hockey League. An Edmonton native, Benke joined his hometown club this summer after playing 66 games over the previous three seasons with the Regina Pats. The 1988-born player dressed for two of the Kings’ first four games.
“It’s tough,” said Green. “Karl’s 19, and it’s tough for those kids to be in and out of the lineup at that age and sooner or later Karl’s going to want to play a lot, and in our situation, we really need to develop a younger guy. When we are able to acquire Adrian, that prompted the move to reassign Karl to Grande Prairie.”
EXILED GOALIE SENT PACKING
Also on the move is netminder Tommy Tartaglione. Green sent the19-year-old to the Prince George Cougars in late September, receiving a 2009 conditional bantam draft pick as compensation. Tartaglione, a veteran of two WHL seasons, was acquired by the Oil Kings in a June trade with the Regina Pats, but never played for the team after being sent home for disciplinary reasons during camp last month.
CLUTCH KINGS
The Oil Kings showed a flair for the dramatic in their first week of action.
Local hero J.P. Szaszkiewiecz scored the game-winning goal with less than two ticks showing on the clock, to give the Kings a 4-3 victory over the Kootenay Ice in their first-ever game, witnessed by a crowd of 6,782 at Rexall Place on Sept. 20.
They also produced some magic in the dying moments five nights later in Red Deer, where they rallied from a 3-1 deficit with less than half a period remaining. Cepek tallied with just over a minute to play to complete the comeback and force overtime. The Rebels eventually won in a shootout.
FRANCHISE FIRSTS
It took only 2:08 for the Kings to score their first goal, coming off the stick of versatile forward Brandon Lockerby, with Braden Adamyk and Shane Neigum drawing assists. Stammler will go down in the record books as the first player to take a penalty and ex-Kelowna Rocket Brett Breitkreuz exchanged pleasantries with Kootenay’s Konrad Sander in the franchise’s inaugural scrap. |
