Red Deer Rebels prospects and current AJHL players Davin Stener and Chase McMurphy will be chasing pucks in the frozen wilds of Alaska in the not too distant future.
Or maybe not.
Stener, a defenceman with the Drumheller Dragons, and Calgary Mustangs forward McMurphy have verbally committed to the University of Alaska Fairbanks — Stener for the 2012-13 campaign, McMurphy’s entry season unconfirmed — but their WHL rights will stay with Red Deer.
Rebels GM/head coach Jesse Wallin stated Thursday that the pair will be taken off the team’s 50-player protected list and placed on a special college list.
“They’ve made verbal commitments but they can still forego that and choose our (WHL) route if they decide to do so,” said Wallin.
Of the two, McMurphy would appear to have the greater major junior upside. The six-foot-two, 180-pound winger has scored twice and added six assists in eight games while ringing up 20 minutes in penalties with the Mustangs this season.
Stener, five-foot-10, 185-pounds, has three assists in three games as an anchor on the Drumheller blueline. He was reassigned following the Rebels’ Black and White intrasquad game and McMurphy left the club a day or two later when he failed to get a guarantee of regular-season employment.
l The Rebels are No. 3 in the latest CHL Top 10 rankings released Wednesday, trailing only the defending Memorial Cup champion Saint John Sea Dogs of the QMJHL and the OHL’s London Knights.
While that’s a nice acknowledgement, the 2-0 Rebels aren’t ordering the rings just yet.
“Really, at this point of the year it’s great to be recognized, but to me, it’s irrelevant,” Wallin said Thursday while en route to Saskatoon where the Rebels tangled with the Blades tonight.
“It’s very early in the season and I don’t put a whole lot of merit in that . . . it is what it is. Our focus is on our team and on continuing to get better.
Last year we were in the mix (Top 10 rankings) for something like 20 weeks. It’s great to be recognized but at the end of the day it’s what you do on the ice. I don’t put a whole lot of stock in it.”
On the move: In an effort to boost their scoring production, the Lethbridge Hurricanes acquired overage forward Matt Marantz from the Spokane Chiefs Thursday in exchange for a fourth-round pick in the 2012 WHL bantam draft. The presence of Chiefs tough guy forward Darren Kramer and fellow 20-year-olds Corbin Baldwin and Steven Muhn made Marantz, who potted 20 goals last season and garnered 42 points, expendable . . . The Regina Pats moved 18-year-old defenceman Myles Bell to the Kelowna Rockets late last week in return for blueliner Colton Jobke, 19, a second-round pick in the 2012 bantam draft and a fifth-round selection in 2013.
Just notes: Cody Beach has realized the error of his ways, or so he says. The Moose Jaw Warriors forward was handed a seven-game suspension by the WHL head office after being assessed a checking-to-the-head major and game misconduct for a hit on Brandon’s Bruno Mraz during the Warriors’ home opener Sept. 22. “I felt like it was definitely a statement by the league,” Beach told Matthew Gourlie of the Moose Jaw Times-Herald. “Seven games is a large amount to sit out in a season. I’m going to sit it out and I don’t expect to be suspended again.” Added the six-foot-six winger, a repeat offender, of the shakedown on head hits: “It’s definitely a good rule. I like what the league’s putting in. I definitely support it. It’s out there to protect the players and it protects me, so I have to agree with it. It’s there for safety and it’s there for a purpose.” Still on the discipline front, league VP Richard Doerksen suspended Tri-City Americans forward Jordan Messier for two games Tuesday after reviewing an incident — at the request of the Portland Winterhawks — in which Messier was assessed a minor penalty for interference. “Portland requested supplemental discipline. They felt it should have been a major and a game misconduct,” Doerksen told Annie Fowler of the Tri-City Herald. “I reviewed the play and determined it should have been a major for charging and a game misconduct. At the time, they made the determination that it was a minor penalty because there was no injury on the play.” Meanwhile, Spokane’s Dominik Uher was hit with a three-game suspension for a checking-from-behind major . . . The Medicine Hat Tigers received a bonus last Sunday when speedy and highly-skilled forward Emerson Etem, 19, was returned to the club by the Anaheim Ducks. “I don’t think we really expected Emerson to come back to be honest with you. We thought he was ready for the NHL, obviously they have different ideas of where he’s at with his game,” Tigers assistant coach Darren Kruger told Sean Rooney of the Medicine Hat News. “Emerson adds another dimension to our hockey team that I thought we were going to miss this year a bit. He helps our forward corps immensely, and the power play, everything we’re trying to do.” Overage forward Kellan Tochkin has also been returned to the Tigers — from the Vancouver Canucks — and joins forward Cole Grbavac and defenceman Matthew Konan as the club’s 20-year-olds. Swedish blueliner Sebastian Owuya, 20, has been released by the Winnipeg Jets and placed on WHL waivers by the Tigers.
gmeachem@www.reddeeradvocate.com
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