Thunderbirds youth movement in full force after Matthew Wedman traded to Kelowna
Dec 6, 2019, 6:15 PM | Updated: 6:56 pm
Seattle Thunderbirds captain Matthew Wedman was traded to the Kelowna Rockets Thursday. (Brian Liesse/TBirds)
(Brian Liesse/TBirds)
VICTORIA, British Columbia – With the Thunderbirds on Vancouver Island and the WHL trade deadline over a month away, Seattle general manager Bil La Forge wasted no time making a splashy move.
Thursday evening the Thunderbirds announced they had traded captain Matthew Wedman to the Kelowna Rockets for a 2020 fifth-round pick, 2022 second-round pick, and a 2023 first-round pick.
“Extremely hard decision to move Weds, he’s been here for so long and I’ve known him for longer than that,” La Forge said at the Save-On Foods Memorial Centre Friday. “It wasn’t an easy conversation for sure. I think it was one he knew might come eventually. I’m sure in the back of my head I knew it might come eventually. The return, it was really hard not to accept that.”
Wedman, 20, had played his entire career with the Thunderbirds, appearing in 275 games. He scored one of the biggest goals in franchise history in the 2016 Western Conference Championship and broke out for a 40-goal season last year that ended with him being selected in the seventh round of the NHL Draft by the Florida Panthers.
It should come as no surprise that the Thunderbirds youth movement is now on in full force, and has been since the start of the season. La Forge is building his team around a promising looking group of 16 and 17-year-old rookies.
“We’ve been all-in with the young guys right from day one,” La Forge said. “They’re talented and the last thing to come is consistency, we knew that, but they have to be given opportunities. Weds played 26-27 minutes a night so there’s going to be seven to eight minutes that someone else will be able to eat up.
“It’s a work in progress, we know that but we’re still going to go every night to try and win and make the playoffs.”
With Wedman’s departure, the team is without a captain.
As the last remaining member of Seattle’s 2017 WHL Championship Team, Wedman had done nearly all there was to do in the WHL as a Thunderbird. He was looked up to by the young players and someone will have to now step in to fill that leadership role.
“He was a good captain,” La Forge said. “I know (head coach Matt O’Dette) met with the guys last night and I’ll probably meet with them here shortly. I think it’s leadership by committee now. We have a lot of guys that have worn the A or been leaders, so I think everyone is going to step up and take more leadership on.”
La Forge has been loading up on assets since January of last year thanks to a slew of trades.
He now has six first-round draft picks over the next four drafts which could not only bring in top players but gives the Thunderbirds weapons to make future trades.
“I don’t think there’s any secret to what we’re doing,” La Forge said. “We believe in our group. We believe in our scouts and we’re going to have a very good team in the very near future. I think we have a good team now. I think we’re going to continue to develop and be a hard-working group but there will come a time when I’ll need to be a buyer at the deadline.
“The one thing that I’ve said is that we want to sustain this, we don’t want to be a one to two-year window. We want to be good every year and with these trades, it’s going to give us the option in a couple of years to make a move and give a first-round pick to get a kid and still have one there.”
With Wedman off to Kelowna, the Thunderbirds were short a 20-year-old. In a separate trade they acquired one from the Everett Silvertips and picked up Max Patterson for a 2020 fourth-round pick.
“I’ve watched him for a long time,” La Forge said of Patterson. “I like the way he plays, he wins faceoffs…he’s a big-time character kid, the definition of leadership, and very good with young players.”
Patterson, 20, is a 6-foot-6 center who was part of the Swift Current Broncos championship squad in 2018. With Everett this season he had scored three goals and 12 points in 24 games.
The Thunderbirds will now push forward for the playoffs. Entering Friday’s game with the Victoria Royals, they’re eight points back of the last remaining playoff spot with over half of the season to go.
La Forge says he has not thrown in the towel on the season.
“Never,” La Forge said. “It’s not in my DNA and not in any of our coaches. We’ve got an eight-point deficit to makeup and we’ve got a lot of time to make it up, so we’ve got to just take it one game at a time. Until they tell us we can’t play anymore, we’ll be here.”
They’ll have to do it without Wedman who will get the rare chance in Kelowna to play in a second Memorial Cup as the Rockets will be hosting this year’s tournament. He’ll always be remembered for a goal that he scored against the Rockets in double overtime that sent the Thunderbirds to their second WHL Championship series.
The image of Wedman raising his hands at the half boards, full grin, waiting for his teammates to mob him that night will forever be burned into Thunderbirds lore.
