Vancouver Giants’ trio of 20 year olds navigates last week in WHL

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The Vancouver Giants’ trio of Misha Volotovskii, Ethan Mittelsteadt and Kelton Pyne have played a combined 681 regular season games in the WHL. They can add just six more to that total, at best.

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Volotovskii, Mittelsteadt and Pyne are Vancouver’s three 20 year olds, and they will graduate out of junior hockey after this weekend. The Giants visit the Kamloops Blazers Friday and then host the Kamloops Saturday at the Langley Events Centre in their regular season finale.

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Vancouver (25-38-1-2) had high hopes coming into this campaign but they’ve underperformed for some stretches and been side-swiped by injuries for others. They were eliminated from playoff contention earlier this month. It’s the first time they’ve missed the post-season since 2016-17, but they also haven’t won a playoff series since their upset of the Everett Silvertips in 2021-22.

That’s left Volotovskii, Mittelsteadt and Pyne with just a few more days of junior hockey following five years apiece in the WHL. It’s common practice for 20 year olds to talk about how their time in the circuit has rocketed by. The trio were in line with that in conversation on Tuesday.

“The 20 year olds always seemed so much older than me,” said Volotovskii, a centre born in Russia but raised largely in Calgary who goes into this week with 284 regular season games on his resume. “You never think ‘that’s going to be me in a two or three years.’ All of the sudden it is you, and you’re the guy who’s so much older.

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“It’s cliché, but it does fly by. You really have to enjoy every moment.”

All three players were trade additions with Vancouver. Rearguard Mittelsteadt arrived in November 2024 from the Kelowna Rockets in exchange for a pair of WHL Draft selections. Goaltender Pyne joined the team this past October in a deal that sent a draft pick to the Regina Pats.

Vancouver added Volotovskii at the Jan. 8 trade deadline from the Medicine Hat Tigers in return for a pair of picks. Medicine Hat looks every bit a title contender this year, and in early January the Calgary Flames aided their chances by reassigning winger Andrew Basha back to Tigers from their AHL Calgary Wranglers affiliate.

That put Medicine Hat one over the league’s three 20-year-old maximum. Someone had to go. That someone was Volotovskii, even though he had been a key contributor during the Tigers’ run to the WHL crown last season.

You would understand him being bitter moving off a team hovering at the top of the standings to one languishing near the bottom in his final year. He instead Tuesday applauded Medicine Hat general manager/coach Willie Desjardins for how he handled it all.

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“He was upfront and honest about it,” said Volotovskii, who has 17 goals and 34 points in 60 games this season. “I have the upmost respect for Willie. He’s a terrific coach. Everyone says it. You can see why. He loves the players so much. He believes in his players. You can see why he’s so successful.

“It’s hockey. Sometimes guys get traded. It’s part of the game.”

It was easy to wonder if Pyne might get traded out of Vancouver at some point after they found some traction early in the season, since they already had an NHL drafted netminder in New York Islanders prospect Burke Hood, 18.

Pyne and Hood split duties all season instead. They’ll likely share starts again this weekend. Pyne’s got into 32 games with Vancouver so far, compared to 41 for Hood. Pyne has a 7-19-0-1 record with a 3.74 goals against average and an .898 save percentage.

“It’s tough to trade 20 year olds in this league. If you’re going somewhere you’re probably going there to stay,” reasoned Pyne, a White City, Sask., product who has 136 WHL regular season games to his credit.

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Pyne is aiming to play collegiately next year, at either a U Sports school or at an NCAA one. That American route became available last year when the NCAA changed its scholarship rules regarding players from Major Junior leagues like the WHL.

Volotovskii is going NCAA, joining the UMass Lowell River Hawks next fall. Mittelsteadt is taking advantage of the new option as well, headed to the Princeton Tigers.

‘U Sports is still awesome. It’s a great league with good schools,” Mittelsteadt, a Victoria native who has 261 regular season games played in the WHL to date. “But it’s awesome that this has opened up and given a guy like me a chance to do something like this.”

Volotovskii, Mittelsteadt and Pyne all spoke about being disappointed that Vancouver isn’t advancing to the playoffs. There’s a silver lining in this for them, though, since things end so abruptly when you lose a post-season series. You’re full speed ahead for days on end, you lose your fourth game of a series and the players head their separate ways almost immediately.

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Mittelsteadt explained it perfectly with: “You go from 100 miles per hour to zero in a blink of an eye.”

Vancouver being on the outside looking in already has given all three a chance to lean into this being their final few days at this level.

“You obviously want to be in the playoffs,” said Mittelsteadt, who has three goals and 13 points in 59 games this season so far. “If you’re not, you want to enjoy the last couple of weeks of the season and I think we have. We’ve been playing better hockey lately and winning some games. We’re all competitive guys. It may be two games that don’t mean anything in the standings but we’re going to try to sweep the weekend and put on a show.”

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SEwen@postmedia.com

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