Sandis Vilmanis

Trade deadlines are drawing near for all three of the Canadian Hockey League sub-outfits: the OHL, QMHJL and WHL. That’s resulted in some notable moves surrounding NHL-affiliated players in recent days, including the WHL’s Wenatchee Wild shipping out their superstar duo of Sabres prospect Matthew Savoie (2022, ninth overall) and Coyotes prospect Conor Geekie (2022, 11th overall) to the Moose Jaw Warriors and Swift Current Broncos, respectively. There’s been a handful of other notable moves, too, though, which we’ll outline here:

• After winning the Emile Bouchard Trophy for the QMJHL’s Defenseman of the Year last season, Ducks prospect Tristan Luneau has played sparingly in 2023-24 despite making the NHL roster out of camp. He’s appeared in just seven games with the Ducks – still yet to burn the first year of his entry-level contract almost halfway through the season. Luneau’s also played six games with AHL San Diego on a conditioning stint and has been on loan to Team Canada for the recently wrapped-up 2024 IIHF World Junior Championship. However, a viral infection sidelined Luneau for the whole tournament, and he has yet to be recalled from his loan. That’s led to some speculation that the Ducks may return him to junior hockey when he’s healed from his infection, fuelled further today by the Victoriaville Tigres acquiring his rights from the Gatineau Olympiques for a conditional fifth-round pick in the 2024 QMJHL Draft. The 53rd overall pick in the 2022 NHL Entry Draft had a banner year with Gatineau last season, leading the league in assists (63) and points (83) by a defenseman in 65 games while notching a +49 rating.
• 21-year-old Maple Leafs center prospect Braeden Kressler is on the move in the OHL, heading from the Flint Firebirds to the Ottawa 67’s to close out his overage season. Kressler was not picked up in the 2021 NHL Draft after the OHL suspended operations that season due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but he earned a training camp invite with Toronto later that summer which resulted in an entry-level contract. Kressler had a disappointing post-draft season marred by injury with just 16 points in 28 games during the 2021-22 campaign, but he’s since rebounded to put up over a point per game in Flint since the beginning of last season while serving as an alternate captain. Thus far in 2023-24, Kressler has 15 goals and 37 points in 33 games, good enough to tie for the Firebirds’ lead in scoring.
• Shortly after repping Latvia at the World Juniors, Panthers forward prospect Sandis Vilmanis is heading from the OHL’s Sarnia Sting to the North Bay Battalion. The Panthers’ 2022 fifth-round pick is still 19 years old and just rattled off four points in five games for Latvia at the WJC, making himself just one of two players on the roster to score twice. Only four out of 20 OHL teams do not make the playoffs – Sarnia is in position to be one of those teams, making sense that they’d sell off one of their better players to a North Bay team that’s fourth in the league’s Eastern Conference. Vilmanis’ 28 points through 30 games are third on the Sting in scoring.
• The Canucks have loaned out left-wing prospect Josh Bloom back to juniors after he began the year in the minors, and the 20-year-old subsequently signed an OHL Scholarship and Development Agreement with the Saginaw Spirit. Bloom spent parts of four seasons in Saginaw from 2019 to 2023 before he was dealt to North Bay early last season, where he proceeded to rack up 25 goals and 55 points in 49 games while being a major factor on the penalty kill. Bloom, initially a third-round pick of the Sabres in 2021 whose NHL rights were traded to Vancouver last February, had just one assist in 14 games with AHL Abbotsford and two assists in eight games with ECHL Kalamazoo.
• The Blue Jackets made Nova Scotia-born center Tyler Peddle the last pick of the 2023 NHL Draft nearly six months ago. He’s now been traded from the QMJHL’s Drummondville Voltigeurs to the Saint John Sea Dogs as he looks to jumpstart a highly discouraging post-draft campaign. Peddle, 18, notched 24 goals and 41 points in 64 games for Drummondville last season en route to his draft selection. This year, his scoring pace has decreased by almost 50% to just 14 points in 38 combined games between Drummondville and Saint John, the latter of whom he’s already played for once after the trade went through earlier this week. Peddle has not scored a goal in his last ten games and, if he can’t quickly get back on the scoresheet, is looking like a strong candidate to re-enter the NHL draft in 2025 and not earn an entry-level deal from Columbus in that time.