First, it was Lukas Hansen. Then, it was Brandon Lisowsky and Tanner Molendyk. Finally, it was leading scorer Ben Riche. All veterans with the Saskatoon Blades that were traded away in less than two weeks.
Normally, when a team trades away their best players, it signifies they are rebuilding and giving up on being competitive this season. Yet the Blades currently sit second in the Eastern Conference and first in the East Division. The playoffs are well within the team’s future this season and while it may not be as deep of a run as last season, they are in a great position to earn home-ice advantage. That’s not usually the time to trade away big stars.
Yet the Blades weren’t supposed to be good this season. It was supposed to be a retooling year; they lost a lot of their top players from last season and were expected to take a step back. Playoffs were still expected – they still had a good team – but not guaranteed. It would be a lot harder to win, or so everyone thought. But then Saskatoon became the first team in the Western Hockey League (WHL) to 10 wins and showed no signs of slowing down. Nearly every game, win or lose, was decided by a single goal. They were competitive, which put general manager and team president Colin Priestner in a strange situation. Did he commit to adding picks to refresh the team’s bare cupboard, or go all in for another playoff run?
In the end, Priestner did a little of both. The Blades needed more picks to stay relevant, but they had seen their young players emerge as top WHL talent. The team’s decision to move stars wasn’t so much an admission of defeat, but more so a belief that their young core is more than capable of carrying the team for the foreseeable future.
Blades Pay a High Price to Restock
When an NHL team decides its playoff window has closed or the farm system has run dry, many will undergo a rebuild, trading away big stars for prospects and draft picks for a few seasons until they have enough stockpiled talent to start competing again. Some have quick turnarounds, like the New Jersey Devils or New York Rangers. Others take a bit longer to get things re-organized.
However, a junior team can’t afford to undergo a full-scale rebuild. Since players are only eligible from ages 16-20, playoff windows are much smaller and running out of prospects can have catastrophic results. The Blades have been top playoff competitors for several seasons, but after they missed out on last season’s title, their playoff window closed rapidly, and the team didn’t have a lot of good pieces coming in that could sustain a franchise. So, Priestner made the difficult call.
“I get it, it’s weird. It’s not fun, I did not want to do this,” said Priestner following the trade announcement on Jan 2. But he did it anyway because he knew the team would be better for it. “We don’t have any draft picks before this deal until the fourth round this year,” he added. “And we don’t have any draft picks in the year after that until the eighth round before today. That’s not sustainable long-term. We’ve been in on most every player for seven years that comes available. At some point, you have to pay off the credit card.”
The credit card bill wasn’t cheap, though, and it cost the Blades three more stars. Molendyk, who’d been in Saskatoon since he was drafted fifth overall in 2020, was sent to the Medicine Hat Tigers. Hansen, selected 23 picks after Molendyk and had leaned on his team when he underwent some personal struggles earlier this season, was sent to the Calgary Hitmen. Riche, the final big piece to drop and had broken out in his first season with Saskatoon, went to the Prince George Cougars. Each brought in significant pieces that will undoubtedly make the Blades better in the future, but it still wasn’t easy.
“This is one of the hardest deals we’ve ever had to make,” Priestner said Monday after the deal for Molendyk was finalized. “Not only did Tanner give us some of the best seasons ever played by a Blades defender, but he also almost single-handedly gives us an entire WHL Draft worth of picks back to build our future around, as well as two outstanding 17-year-old players. For these gifts, there are almost no words we can use to thank him. He’s one of the most special players we’ve ever had, and I’m so excited for him to have a chance to finish his WHL career on a Tigers team loaded with high-end talent.”
Blades Relying on Much Younger Core
The Blades added two first-round picks, three second-rounders, four more later picks and four players 17 years old or younger at the deadline, refilling the depleted cupboards in Saskatoon. However, they weren’t bare; the Blades’ current group of 2008 and 2007-born players have been lighting up the WHL already and look ready to take the next step.
Related: Saskatoon Blades’ Lukas Hansen a Leader On and Off the Ice
16-year-old Cooper Williams currently has 26 points, putting him 16th among U18 players in the WHL. He’s regularly teamed up with fellow 16-year-old Zach Olsen, who had 15 points, and David Lewandowski, a 17-year-old who joined the team in October after starting the season in Germany, who has 17 points in 22 games. It’s one of the reasons Priestner felt confident in moving his biggest stars – the Blades’ rookies have outperformed expectations and proved that they can handle a bigger piece of the pie.
But that’s not all; Priestner was confident in his young core to handle the rest of the season, picking out a few players that he felt were ready to handle bigger responsibilities. “I think Hudson Kibblewhite has had an up-and-down first half with injuries but there’s a ton of upside there with him,” said Priestner. “Lewandowski, coming off his World Juniors with two goals…I think he’s going to have a huge second half and he can play more. He’s playing 15 minutes a game, there’s more that’s there for him. I really like the evolution of Jordan Martin, Isaac Poll, and Brayden Klimpke on D. All three of those ’07s have come a long way…(but) Kibblewhite stands out as a guy that we have a lot of hope in that he’s going to be a big-time player for us in the second half and next year and beyond.”
Kibblewhite, one of Saskatoon’s 17-year-olds, isn’t a rookie anymore after playing 38 games last season, but in 2024-25, he has already doubled his point total, jumping up from six points to 12 in fewer games. Like Olsen, Lewandowski, and Williams, he’s fast, tenacious, and has shown massive growth this season as his role has increased.
On the blue line, the trio of Martin, Klimpke, and Poll give the Blades a well-rounded group that can be moved around as needed. Martin is an aggressive defensive defenceman and loves to engage physically with the opponent, which made him a top choice to partner up with captain Ben Saunderson on the top pairing while Molendyk was busy at the World Juniors. However, Klimpke plays a game much more similar to the Nashville Predators prospect, employing a smooth stride with a strong offensive presence. Poll, the Blades’ last first-round pick from 2022, is a big, right-shot defender who is the most reserved of the three, playing a reliable defensive style on the bottom pairing.
Saskatoon Setting up for Success
All those moves have made the Blades the youngest team in the WHL with an average roster age of 17.59. That’s placed some of the team’s younger players in a bigger leadership role than they likely expected when they made the team. Players like Olsen, who has been a regular on Saskatoon’s second line, has become the go-to-guy for some of the incoming 15-year-olds.
“I’ve tried my best to be a leader at a young age, for all these younger guys who are getting called up,” said Olsen. “They have asked me a couple of questions here and there, so I’m just doing the best I can to help guide them.”
That’s probably uncomfortable for some of them, who are still learning how to play in the WHL themselves. But being put into that situation gives the Blades a very strong developing group that can grow as a unit and help usher in new groups of players. “We’re obviously super super young,” Olsen continued. “And I think we have lots of experience on this team right now so I think that’s going to be really helpful in the years to come. Everyone will know what’s coming and we can help the younger guys who we get.”
For the last time in 2024, a closer look at @BladesHockey with our final edition of Blades Bio for the year.
— Scott Roblin (@ScottRoblin) December 19, 2024
Great catching up with rookie forward Zach Olsen who is off to a strong start to his junior career.
Our series gets going again in the new year. pic.twitter.com/PihiWN0jMX
Despite the unfavourable situation awaiting the Blades in the second half, the team seems ready for it. After all, that’s just what life is like playing and working with a junior team. “The reality of the situation we are in is that we have been “all in” for several years in a row loading up to make title runs,” said Priestner after trading Lisowksy. “Those runs came at a significant future cost, as we traded multiple first and second-round picks away over the last few years knowing that one day we’d have to move out some older players to get some of these picks back. We did not have a first or second-round pick last May in the 2024 WHL Prospects Draft, but we feel strongly that our scouts were able to put together a great group of future Blades. However, that’s not a feasible plan to rely on for two or more years in a row.”
“In order to maintain the long-term prosperity of the club, we need to recoup some of these high picks to stay competitive in the future…In junior hockey, two consecutive draft classes will eventually make up around 40% of your roster, and unlike the NHL, we don’t have free agency and long-term contracts to neutralize having a weak draft class.”
This season may not end as positively as the last, but that’s a good thing. With a good group of rookies already playing in the WHL, several draft picks from a flurry of trades, and a handful of talented youngsters and prospects waiting for their turn to don the blue and gold, Saskatoon will return to the top of the standings much sooner than if they had waited this season out. Things happen quickly in junior hockey, and who knows? Maybe the Blades can find a bit more magic to close out the season and show everyone what the youngest roster in the WHL can do.
Sign up for our NHL Prospects & Draft Substack newsletter
