With the Ontario Hockey League trade deadline come and gone, the Wolves now have a line-up that will be consistent to finish the season.
The Wolves did make one final move prior to the noon deadline on Jan. 11, sending 19-year-old forward Chad Heffernan to the London Knights in return for a 4th-round draft pick.
Heffernan filled a certain role with the Wolves, registering 160 penalty minutes in 72 games with the team after being acquired from Belleville last year.
It’s a role I am certain the Knights want Heffernan to continue as London looks for yet another deep playoff run.
A 4th-round draft pick is good return for a player who was obviously not in the Wolves plans as an overage player next year.
Some maybe disappointed the Wolves didn’t do more at the deadline, but I think they took the right approach.
There was no way this team should have even considered being buyers or wholesale sellers.
A number of moves were already made that sets the team up nicely for the rest of this year, but more importantly for next year.
General Manager Barclay Branch told the Northern Life a couple of days prior to the trade deadline that they were pretty happy and content to move forward with what they have.
“I think given the fact that we’ve made the moves we made already and at the time that we made them it was for a couple of reasons,” Branch said last week. “No. 1, it was an opportunity to get our team better we felt in those moves. No. 2, it was an opportunity to address maybe some deficiencies that we saw in the lineup.
“And the third is that we could make these moves at a time where we don’t have to get our backs up against the wall, for lack of better term, at the trade deadline.”
Those comments tell me that there is a plan in place and the organization is sticking to it.
Sure, nobody thought this season would turn out as it has.
I join those who thought the team would be much better than last year, but at the same time I said, over and over, getting this team into the playoffs this season would have been a bonus.
The key has been the development and the continued development of the young players who will provide the future success of the team.
Branch told reporter Nick Liard the team has stuck to that plan, so moving young players was never considered.
Just look at the list of 16- and 17-year-old players: David Levin, Ben Garagan, Macauley Carson, Nicholas Romero, Brandon Bastasin, Reagan O'Grady, Brady Pataki, Michael Pezzetta, Alan Lyszczarczyk and Dmitry Sokolov.
These — along with veterans like Matt Schmalz, Conor Cummins, Kyle Capobianco, Zach Wilkie, Cole Mayo, Ryan Valentini and 18-year-old goaltenders Troy Timpano and Zack Bowman — forms a pretty solid core.
The trade deadline is a very dangerous time.
Teams tend to panic, feeling they have to make moves to keep up with the rest of the league.
However, in the Wolves case, making moves for the sake of making moves just didn’t make sense.
I think that was the right move to make.
Stew Kernan is the radio and television voice of the Sudbury Wolves, and the News Director at KiSS 105.3 and Q92.
