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Saskatoon Blades, er, Brandon Wheat Kings win WHL bantam draft lottery

Kelly Friesen

The Brendan Walker deal keeps on giving for the Brandon Wheat Kings.

Even though the Saskatoon Blades won the WHL bantam draft lottery, the Wheat Kings have walked away with the first overall pick because of a stipulation GM-head coach Kelly McCrimmon pushed for in a 2012 offseason trade that he made with the Blades. In the deal, McCrimmon sent Walker to Saskatoon for the rights to swap 2014 first-round picks in addition to acquiring two second-round picks.

Luck was on McCrimmon’s side, but the saying ‘You have to be good to be lucky, and lucky to be good’ really describes this situation. The Wheat Kings architect clearly pushed for the picks-swap clause to be in the trade because he foreseen that the Bridge City Boys would be in tough shape this year following loading up for the 2013 MasterCard Memorial Cup last season.

"(It’s) great for our organization. It's a chance to select the player that we think is the best in his age group," McCrimmon told Wheat Kings play-by-play announcer Bruce Luebke. "You need to have a season where you finish last to be in this position and we're fortunate from a previous trade that we had the right to flip picks. It's going to be real nice for our staff in terms of our final selections, and obviously a really important day for the organization when you look at some of the young players that we already have. It gives us a chance to add a real premiere guy to that group."

Ultimately, this isn’t earthshattering news to Blades GM Lorne Molleken because he didn’t have the rights to his first-round pick anyways. He dealt his top 2014 bantam pick to the Vancouver Giants for Nathan Burns last year. Therefore, the Giants got the short end of the stick in this situation because they now will swap picks with the Wheat Kings, who originally held the 10th selection. But at the end of the day, Vancouver GM Scott Bonner still came out on top of the Burns deal by a wide margin.

The Lethbridge Hurricanes, Kamloops Blazers, Moose Jaw Warriors and Prince George Cougars will round out the top-five selections of the draft in that respective order.

Powerhouse in the making

The lottery win just adds to the argument that the Wheat Kings should be one of the top contenders for the 2016 Ed Chynoweth Cup. In addition to their future first-overall selection, who will be a rookie in the 2015-16 season, top 2013 bantam picks Nolan Patrick and Kale Clague will be sophomores and leading-goal scorer Jayce Hawryluk and prominent blueliner Ryan Pilon will be in their 19-year-old seasons. Albeit potential doesn’t always translate into production, Brandon seems to have most of the ingredients for a winning recipe.

In terms of whom the Wheat Kings will pick, some scouts believe the draft lottery win has paved the way for the Manitoba club to add Winnipeg Monarchs forward Selio Mattheos to their arsenal.

“Although there isn’t a clear-cut No. 1 overall prospect this year, it does mean that they (Wheat Kings) will get their hands down the top Manitoba player in Selio Mattheos of the Winnipeg Monarchs,” says Tyler Neisz, director of scouting of Western Elite Hockey Prospects. “Mattheos is currently our No. 1 overall ranked prospect in the latest rankings. He is a very powerful player who’s very fast with a great balance which he uses to drive the net and make power moves on defencemen. He’s also very difficult to contain on the rush or down low and has an excellent shot.”

It will be interesting to see how many dance partners McCrimmon can find for deals leading up to his club’s push for a championship. He, after all, has cleaned house in the trade department over the course of the past two years. He not only turned Walker into a first-overall pick and won the Pilon sweepstakes, but he also managed to bring in Clague, who was the top defenceman of last year’s draft, through a trade by sending overage goalie Corbin Boes and the Blades’ 2013 first-round pick, which he acquired for Michael Ferland, to the Hurricanes.

Kelly Friesen is a Buzzing the Net columnist for Yahoo! Sports. Follow him on Twitter @KellyFriesen