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WHL preview: Hitmen, Rebels and Oil Kings lead the Central Division

Kelly Friesen

With the season starting on Sept. 19, we will look at each division in the WHL and make 14 fun facts and fearless forecasts for the upcoming 2013-14 season.

The WHL’s Central Division seems to be split into two. The Calgary Hitmen, Red Deer Rebels and Edmonton Oil Kings are at the top in a three-horse race for first place. While the Kootenay Ice, Medicine Hat Tigers and Lethbirdge Hurricanes are in a battle for playoff spots.

1. Oil Kings will be in tough to take the Eastern Conference – Edmonton has their work cut out for them to come out of their conference for the third straight year. They lost their top two leading scorers, Michael St. Croix and Dylan Wruck, a trio of stud defencemen, David Musil, Martin Gernat and Keegan Lowe, superstar puck-stopper Laurent Brossoit and a handful of other impact players in the offseason.

It is, however, a safe bet for the Oil Kings to capture a home-ice-advantage playoff spot because they have Ottawa Senators first-rounder Curtis Lazar and Phoneix Coyotes first-rounder Henrik Samuelsson leading the offense and Pittsburgh Penguins second-rounder Tristan Jarry in between the pipes. But if Griffin Reinhart doesn’t return for his 19-year-old season from the New York Islanders, it seems they would have to overachieve to come out on top of two post-season series.

2. Hurricanes are due to make the playoffs – Lethbridge hockey fans are starting to lose their patience. They haven’t seen their team in the second season since 2009. So their luck is bound to turn around under new head coach Drake Berehowsky, right?

Stopping pucks shouldn’t be a concern with the Hurricanes because they went out and replaced Ty Rimmer, who was a 20 year old last year, by acquiring Corbin Boes from the Brandon Wheat Kings. This team will live and die by their 18-and-under core. The time is now for a handful of their youngsters, most notably blueliner Ryan Pilon, who was selected third overall in the 2011 bantam draft, and centre Reid Duke, who was picked fifth overall, to blossom into high-end players.

3. Hitmen’s hopeful success hinges on Jake Virtanen – Calgary needs someone to step up offensively with them losing Cody Sylvester, Brooks Macek and Carolina Hurricanes prospect Victor Rask in the offseason. That someone is 2012 first-overall draft pick Jake Virtanen. He gave the Hitmen a taste of what he can bring the table last year in his rookie season, scoring 16 goals and 34 points in 62 games. It seems he could improve his point total by roughly double this year, similar to what Lazar did in Edmonton last season.

4. The Ice aren’t the 10th best team in the CHL – The CHL ranked Kootenay the 10th best team in the major junior program in their pre-season ranking. There is a strong argument that the Ice may be the 10th best club in the WHL, but in the entire CHL is much more than a stretch for a group that won one playoff game last year.

The Ice’s Sam Reinhart could turn out to be the best player in the league this year. But the Regina Pats proved in their Jordan Eberle days that it takes more than one player to make a team. Therefore, unless Kootenay clones Reinhart, this 10th overall ranking is going to go down as a head-scratcher to say the least.

5. Ice’s Sam Reinhart will score 100-plus points – If he was on one of the high-end teams last year, Reinhart would have likely netted 100 or more points. But on a offensively-challenged Kootenay club, Reinhart scored 35 goals and 85 points in 72 games.

This year, regarded as the top 2014 draft prospect, Reinhart should hit triple digits. He is not only expected to be a step faster and smoother, but he should also have a better entourage. The likes of Jaedon Descheneau, Luke Philip and Levi Cable showed last year in their first seasons as impact players that they have some untapped potential.

6. A Mathew Dumba return puts the Rebels out in front – If the Minnesota Wild send Dumba back to Red Deer, the Rebels will be an elite team from the blueline in. They’ll have Dumba and top 2014 draft prospect Hadyn Fleury on their top pairing with Brady Gaudet and Kayle Doetzel rounding out their top four. They’ll also have the Dub’s top 2012-13 goalie, Patrik Bartosak, in between the pipes because the Los Angeles Kings announced he will return for his overage season. This strong defensive core should be enough for the Rebels to win their division since they will only have to score three goals most night to capture two points.

7. Hunter Shinkaruk will be back in Medicine Hat – There has been some talk

Shinkaruk could crack the Vancouver Canucks, who drafted him 24th overall in 2013, because of their poor offensive depth. It seems that’s all it will turn out to be, though – talk.

The best place for Shinkaruk’s long-term development this year is in Medicine Hat. He will log huge minutes and get the chance to prove his 49-goal 2011-12 season wasn’t because he was riding shotgun with Anaheim Ducks forward Emerson Etem. In addition, he will likely get the opportunity to represent Canada at the world junior championship.

8. Lukas Sutter will rebound in Red Deer – Sutter’s point production was cut in half and then some last year. His goal total dropped from 28 to 13 and his assist total decreased by 30 to only 11. The Winnipeg Jets prospect essentially only made an impact on the score sheet in one month, December, where he scored eight goals and nine points in 11 games.

It seems the pressure of the Blades’ Memorial Cup season got to Sutter. He went from having little offensive pressure on his shoulders in 2011-12 because of his previous 19-point season to a playing a vital role in the Blades’ offense this year. He couldn’t light the lamp partially because he gripped the stick too tight and tried to force plays.

Under Uncle Brent Sutter in Red Deer, the 6-foot-1, 214-pound centre will get back to the basics. He’ll return to that 2011-12 agitator who focused on crashing and banging. In doing so, he will post north of 50 points.

9. Oil Kings’ Griffin Reinhart won’t return for 19-year-old season – Reinhart didn’t show that he’s ready to make the jump to the NHL last year, but that hasn’t stopped Garth Snow’s New York Islanders in the past from having young prospects join their club. They rushed their 2008 first-round pick Josh Bailey and 2010 first-round pick Nino Niederreiter into The Show. There is an argument that the Islanders haven’t rushed many defencemen and let 2011 first-rounder Ryan Strome play four seasons in the OHL; nonetheless, since more times than not New York pushes top-10 picks to make the jump early and they have a thin blueline, Reinhart’s odds are in favour of sticking on the island.

10. Hurricanes rookies ready to rock – All signs point to Giorgio Estephan, the fourth overall pick of the 2012 bantam draft, and Kolten Olynek, the 26th pick of the 2011 bantam draft, making an impact straight out of the gate in Lethbridge. Both forwards will receive opportunity to succeed and showed last year that they are ready for the major junior jump. Estephan had an excellent rookie season with the SSAC Athletics midget AAA club, potting 17 goals and 47 points in 32 games. Olynek, meanwhile, was arguably the best player in the Saskatchewan Midget AAA Hockey League, scoring 31 goals and 69 points in 38 games for the Saskatoon Contacts.

11. Tristan Jarry will be the real deal in Edmonton – It won’t be easy to fill Brossoit’s shoes, but Jarry is ready to establish himself as one of the top goalies in the Dub. He proved he’s on the brink of becoming a major junior household name last year as he posted a 1.61 average and .936 save percentage in 27 games.

To put into perspective how much potential Jarry has, he could be one of Canada's world junior goalies in 2015. He possesses a 6-foot-2, 180-pound frame, has strong rebound control, already has a veteran confidence and reads plays well.

12. Hurricanes’ new uniform won’t knock anyone’s socks off – Lethbridge’s new logo (pictured to the right) is a large H. As you can see, it looks as a good as it sounds. But you have to give the Hurricanes a little slack since they didn’t want to change their logo from their classic Washington Capitals-inspired uniform. The Capitals forced them to change it because they felt it was too similar to their own.

13. Injuries could sink any team – The competition is so close that a key long-term injury could ultimately sink a team. In the top three, the loss of star players such as Curtis Lazar (Edmonton), Jake Virtanen (Calgary) or Haydn Fleury (Red Deer) could drop that team out of contention for winning their division. Moreover, in the bottom three, the loss of impact players such as Russell Maxwell (Lethbridge), Luke Philp (Kootenay) or Logan McVeigh (Medicine Hat) could be enough to keep that club out of the conference’s top eight.

14. Central team will take the conference – Since only the Prince Albert Raiders appear to have the tools to take a run at the Ed Chynoweth Cup in the East Division, odds are a Central team will be in the finals. It is tough to tell exactly how Red Deer, Edmonton and Calgary will look at this point, but because bold predictions are partially the point of this post, I put my money on the Hitmen.

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