CHARLOTTETOWN, P.E.I. — Brad MacKenzie is hoping to get a couple of pieces Saturday to help his rebuilding hockey team this season.
The Grand Falls Rapids enter the Maritime Junior Hockey League (MHL) online draft with the third overall pick. They also have picks in every round except the seventh but have two in the eighth.
“We hope to get a couple of bodies that are going to step in and play right away,” the Charlottetown native said. “Other than that, we’re really drafting for the future because we have so many guys that are coming back.”
MacKenzie was hired three weeks before the 2019 draft after serving as an assistant coach with the Charlottetown Islanders of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League for three seasons. The 2019-20 season was a transitional year for MacKenzie and the club, which moved to the northwest New Brunswick town from Woodstock, N.B., for the 2018-19 season.
The Rapids went 16-30-3-3 in 2019-20 and would not have qualified for the playoffs in the Eastlink North Division had they not been cancelled in March due to the coronavirus (COVID-19 strain) pandemic.
MacKenzie would like to add some offensive forwards but knows sometimes drafting the top player on their board, regardless of position, is the best strategy to follow.
“There’s lots of variables in junior A,” he said. “Being around the Quebec league draft for four years and then around this one, this one is a lot trickier.”
Junior A teams have more to think about than just taking the best player available. They also have to consider whether the player will make major junior or will they report to junior A. MHL clubs also can’t have 16-year-olds in their lineup unless they are from the province that they are playing in without appealing to Hockey Canada for an exemption.
MacKenzie said his staff is all returning next year, including Nicholas Tremere of Borden-Carleton and Morgan MacDonald of Little Pond.
Montague’s Zac Arsenault, a five-foot-10, 170-pound defenceman, played his first season of junior with the Rapids. The 19-year-old blue-liner had five goals and 12 assists in 51 games and was an assistant captain.
