Victoria Royals looking to rebound from off-season exodus to NCAA

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No WHL team was ransacked by NCAA defections more than the Victoria Royals.

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The Royals lost their top five scorers eligible to return this season to the American collegiate system, with centre Cole Reschny (North Dakota), winger Teydon Trembecky (Michigan Tech), defenceman Justin Kipkie (Arizona State), defenceman Nate Misskey (UMass-Lowell) and defenceman Keaton Verhoeff (North Dakota) all heading south.

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They combined for 334 points last season.

Reschny (Calgary Flames2025 first round), Kipkie (Minnesota Wild, 2025 fifth round) and Misskey (San Jose Sharks, 2024 fifth round) are NHL Draft picks and Verhoeff is projected to be a top-five selection next summer.

The Medicine Hat Tigers lost the league’s best player and all the pomp and circumstance that goes with having the No. 1 pick in the NHL Draft when 2026 consensus top choice Gavin McKenna jumped to Penn State. The rumours regarding the winger leaving the WHL started almost instantly after the NCAA announced its scholarship rules changes last fall.

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Medicine Hat brass and fans had time to prepare for his departure. News in May that Reschny, 18, and Verhoeff, 17, were going to school seemed to come with little warning. Trembecky, Kipkie and Misskey are all 20 year olds, so their moves weren’t as surprising, although it’s easy to suggest Victoria would have been a favourite to win it all if they kept the band together.

Combined, it meant that Royals general manager Jake Heisinger and coach James Patrick had to change plans for this year on the fly. The early returns are good, with Victoria winning their season opener 5-0 over the expansion Penticton Vees on Friday at the Save-On-Foods Memorial Arena.

The Royals have a home-and-home this weekend with the Vancouver Giants, starting with Friday (7 p.m.) at the Langley Events Centre. The teams have a rematch Saturday (6:05 p.m.) at Save-On-Foods.

“It did seem once Cole and Keaton left, the floodgates opened,” Patrick told the Victoria Times Colonist last week.

“It wasn’t panic but it was a bit of a shock. I was under one impression (about the coming season), and then things changed really quickly.

“It was, ‘Well, we can’t do anything about it, so what do we do moving forward?’ That’s when Jake really got to work. We said, ‘If this is the new league, then we’re going to do the best we can in it. We are going to do everything we can to make this a playoff team.’ I’m pretty happy with what I’ve seen on the ice so far in training camp and pre-season.”

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Vancouver lost its home opener Saturday at LEC to Penticton, falling 5-1 to the former BCHL powerhouse. Vancouver had the better of the play in the first period, but couldn’t score. Penticton got up 3-0 midway through the second period, and Vancouver’s team game started to evaporate, which is something that happened routinely when they trailed in games last season.

Hnat Domenichelli, who took over as Vancouver’s general manager this off-season, wasn’t sugar-coating his feelings about his team’s showing when reached Wednesday.

“What I saw was a Langley Events Centre that’s a really exciting place to play,” Domenichelli said. “And our fans came out and supported us. What we have do going forward is play with way more emotion at home. We need to score or finish checks or be harder to play against. There’s a lot of ways to do it.

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“We have to create a home-ice advantage. I’m expecting to see a lot more emotion in our game Friday night.”

Vancouver should have 40-goal man Cameron Schmidt and starting goaltender Burke Hood in their lineup for their season debuts this weekend after both were reassigned to junior from training camp stints with the Dallas Stars and New York Islanders, respectively.

Schmidt, 18, was a third-round pick by the Stars this summer. Hood, 18, was a sixth-round Islanders choice.

Schmidt had one goal as an underage call-up in 2022-23 and 31 goals as a 16-year-old the following season. His career 72 goals as a Giant puts him one behind Vancouver Canucks winger Evander Kane for 13th in team history.

The Giants lost defencemen Mazden Leslie (Bowling Green State) and Colton Roberts (Colorado College) to NCAA schools in the off-season. Vancouver traded Leslie’s rights to the Kelowna Rockets, and he opted to report there instead of going to school. Kelowna hosts the Memorial Cup national championship this spring.

Vancouver and Victoria play eight times this regular season, including four times over an eight-day stretch in December. Victoria was 5-1-0-2 against the Giants last season, led by a combined 37 points from Trembecky (9-6), Kipkie (2-9) and Reschny (2-9).

@Seveves

SEwen@postmedia.com

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