Bombers go all in, picking up five players at league trade deadline

If you thought the Bombers’ historic season would mean standing pat at this year’s roster deadline, think again. The team took big swings before trades stopped Jan. 10, moving five players out, bringing five players in and bolstering the lineup.

Heading into the post-holiday trade period, the Bombers had eight 20-year-old players and 25 players rostered - no wiggle room on either front, right up at the maximum allowed under league rules for both. At the death of trades, the Bombers made no fewer than nine moves - eight trades and one free agent signing. The deadline was the Bombers’ busiest in over a decade and, out of the 16 trade deadlines he’s presided over as head coach and general manager, Mike Reagan ranked it as his finest work.

“We were extremely pleased with what we accomplished. This is by far the best trade deadline that we've had since I've been here,” he said.

Deals

The first trade the Bombers did between the end of the holiday break and the deadline saw them move defender Isaac Deveau to the Winkler Flyers Jan. 3 for a player development fee. Deveau lasted less than a month as an active player with the Bombers, playing three games and putting up a pair of assists in a 5-1 win over Weyburn Dec. 8.

“We brought him in before Christmas and had a look at him. We just felt he wasn’t what we were looking for. He’s a good player and all, but just wasn’t a fit for us - we figured Winkler was a good fit for him and we made that work,” Reagan said. 

Next, the Bombers moved a second defenceman, Fabrice Bourgeois, to the MHL’s Yarmouth Mariners, along with a player development fee Jan. 4. For Bourgeois and the cash, the Bombers received 2004-born forward Jerome Gilbert.

A first-line forward for his former team, Gilbert had 33 points, including 10 goals, in 27 games for the Mariners this year and won a league championship with the team last season, adding two points in five games at the Centennial Cup. Gilbert, a native of Val-d’Or, Quebec, has played with one of the Bombers before, suiting up with Noah Houle for a stretch of games in 2019-20 with the Seminaire St-Joseph Vert et Or in a Quebec under-18 league.

Reagan’s preliminary plan is to play Gilbert with Alexi Sylvestre and Jacob Vockler in the team’s top nine forwards, though the lines may change down the stretch.

“Jerome is a good friend of Noah’s and he’s someone we had our eye on in the summer. I think he wanted to come west for more exposure to colleges and obviously, Flin Flon seemed to be a good choice for that,” said Reagan.

“He skated with us here the last two days and he looks really good. We like his compete, he skates really well and he’s got that Centennial Cup and league championship experience, which I think is very important for us. We wanted to bring in guys who were winners and he checked off that box for sure.”

Bourgeois joined the Bombers this season and had six points in 22 games in maroon and white, all of which came in his first four games with the team.

“We liked Fabrice. At the end of the day, we needed to move him to get Jerome and we knew we needed to get a D-man still - I don’t think he would have been happy with his role after,” Reagan said.

“We loved Fab, he played hard for us. He was tough to play against but we were looking to add a top-four defenceman and that would have meant he’d have to move down.”

Deadline day

The floodgates opened in earnest on deadline day, where the Bombers pulled off seven moves in one day.

First, the Bombers moved two northern players to teams in the MJHL. The first of the two deals saw Cheechoo Lathlin moved from the Bombers to The Blizzard for a fee, sending him to the same team he began his junior A career with. The Blizzard, formerly the OCN Blizzard, moved from Opaskwayak Cree Nation - Lathlin’s hometown - across the river to The Pas this year. Lathlin played six games for the Blizzard in 2022 after finishing up his under-18 career with the Norman Northstars.

Lathlin debuted with the Bombers last season, playing in the team’s home opener before suffering an injury that turned out to end his entire first season in Flin Flon. This year, Lathlin played 24 games in maroon and white, scoring a goal and adding two assists while trying to hammer down a permanent spot in the lineup.

“That one was a bit difficult,” said Reagan.

“Cheech went through a lot last year with injury. He felt that he needed to be closer to home, not that it was far away, but he wanted to go back. We’re happy for him and it’s where he wanted to go. If he can live at home and play for the Blizzard, we wanted to make sure we could make that happen for him.”

The second deal saw the Bombers move Ashton Paul, who they acquired in a trade in September, to the Dauphin Kings with future considerations. In return, the Bombers picked up 2003-born defenceman Anthony Bax.

In Bax, the Bombers picked up a defenceman with size, skill and a mean streak. A native of Parkhill, Ont., the 6-foot-2, 190-pound Bax was in his second season in Dauphin and led the Kings in scoring with 32 points in 30 games, including 13 goals. Bax had 24 points in 49 games with the Kings last season and added 104 penalty minutes, with five points coming in six playoff games. The Bombers will be the fourth junior A team Bax has played for, along with a pair of Ontario clubs - Bax also played with a pair of junior teams in the U.S. before coming to Dauphin.

“He’s the second-leading scorer in the MJHL on the back end. We’re getting a top-four, possibly top-two D man that we’ve been searching for for a long time,” Reagan said.

“He’s going to make our second powerplay unit much better. He brings a lot of things that we were looking for, he competes, he skates, he’s going to make our blueline much better. He’d be a top-two defenceman on any team, so we’re excited about having him.”

The Bombers picked up Paul, a native of The Pas, in a trade shortly after the season began, sending the Blizzard (where he played last season) a player development fee. Between trades, Paul had 19 points, including four goals, for the Bombers in 28 games.

Paul was not a player the Bombers wanted to move, said Reagan, but ultimately, any team with a defender like Bax available wanted Paul back in a deal.

“Whenever you get a really good player, you usually have to give up something pretty good. We don’t like seeing Ashton leave - he was a popular guy in our dressing room and we liked him as a kid and everything,” said the coach.

“I think he’s going to be given more of an opportunity [in Dauphin] than he was used to last year with the Blizzard. We thought with adding Gilbert and [Tyson] Smith, we were making our top six deeper and we could afford to trade him.”

Bax, a right-shot defender, gives the Bombers four highly-rated right-shot defenders - him, Aiden Chow, Adam McNutt and Houle.

“It means that one of those guys is going to be on the ice at all times,” Reagan said.

Picking up Bax put the Bombers at nine 20-year-old players, one over the league limit - the Bombers had to move out a 2003-born player. They did just that by sending Brock Mueller to the Kindersley Klippers, receiving a third-round pick in this year’s SJHL bantam draft and a player development fee. Mueller joined the Bombers in Dec. 2022 and was a big presence when the team was hit by injuries late in the season last year, scoring points in six of the team’s last seven regular season games. After that though, Mueller was cut down by injuries himself, causing him to miss the league final and limiting his effectiveness this season. Mueller had 27 points in 56 regular season games with the Bombers, including 16 points in 28 games this year.

“You can only have so many 20-year-olds. In order to bring in Bax, which was priority one going in, getting a defenceman, unfortunately for Brock, he was the guy to be moved,” Reagan said.

“We couldn’t have asked for more from Brock. It was not anything to do with his play - his play meant he deserved to be here. Unfortunately for him, as I said to anybody we talked to about a trade for him, if he was 19, he wouldn’t have been moved.”

Big fish up front

The Bombers finished the day with two big forward acquisitions, going out west and snagging Fort McMurray Oil Barons captain Keefe Gruener for future considerations and a player development fee.

Gruener was second in team scoring for the Oil Barons with 25 points in 40 games, including 12 goals. The 2004-born Winnipegger headed to Alberta two seasons ago after successful seasons with the Winnipeg Wild U18 AAA team, where he played with Bomber Carter Anderson.

“He’s a dog on a bone,” said Reagan. 

“We love his compete. He’s a great F1. He competes every shift and he’s a guy we really wanted to get. He’s an extremely competitive guy and we want guys who want to compete. He was the cherry on the top - he was the last deal we got done and we weren’t sure that we were going to be able to get him, but we wanted him.”

Reagan says he anticipates Gruener to be a 200-foot player, capable in all zones and situations, with offensive ability. He said he thought back to his early days as the Bombers’ bench boss, when the team would be eliminated in the playoffs by a buzzsaw in the form of the Humboldt Broncos - a dynasty team at the time who rolled four competitive lines, wearing out the Bombers.

“He’s another guy who can take the pressure off our other top guys - let’s be honest, most nights, we relied on them a lot. We wanted to spread out the scoring a bit.”

“I look at when I started coaching and we ran into Humboldt in the semifinals back-to-back years. I really liked our two top lines and I thought they could play with Humboldt, but when our third and fourth lines had to go out, we couldn’t keep up and it forced you to play your top six a lot more than you’d like. By the end of the game, they were exhausted. We want to do that to other teams, where teams are scared to put their third and fourth lines out there - and come the third period, you can take over the game.”

Late in the day, the Bombers executed one last two-in-one trade, pulling in a gifted playmaker from the MJHL’s Selkirk Steelers. Flin Flon swung a deal to pick up Tyson Smith’s Canadian junior A rights from the Steelers for a player development fee, then swung a second one to receive the junior A rights to Nashville Predators third-round pick Adam Ingram for another fee. Ingram, who is in his second season with the NCAA’s St. Cloud State Huskies, isn’t coming north - his acquisition was done to give a second fee to the Steelers while fitting within CJHL rules. 

On the other hand, Smith, who has spent the season so far in the NAHL with the Bismarck Bobcats, will head north.

“He’ll play in our top nine,” Reagan said, adding he plans to start Smith with captain Justin Lies and Anderson.

Smith led the Steelers in scoring last year with 70 points in 57 games, averaging an assist per game and leading the MJHL in assists. This year, Smith left the Steelers and headed south, putting up 14 points in 24 games in Bismarck.

“Everybody that I talked to that is familiar with him raved about him, as far as his passing and playmaking ability. Hopefully, those guys can form some chemistry,” Reagan said.

The Bombers also brought in a young defenceman as a free agent from the AJHL, signing 18-year-old Conor Ryan. Ryan, originally from St. John’s, was playing with the Sherwood Park Crusaders before the team released him, allowing Flin Flon to pick him up while giving nothing away.

Ryan is 5-foot-9, 150 pounds and played 16 games with the Crusaders in his first junior season, putting up four assists. Ryan is a graduate of the Shawnigan Lake School prep program in B.C., the same one that produced Bomber Liam Bridger and former Bomber Ethan Anstey. Reagan said he came across Ryan for the first time watching last season’s Circle K Tournament in Calgary, where Shawnigan Lake played. Ryan excelled there, finishing with six points in five games.

“He’s a guy we watched last year at the Circle K. He’s got a lot of offensive instincts and puck-moving ability and skates well, he’s not a big buy but he moves pucks really well. He’s got a good hockey IQ.”

Final look

All told, the Bombers got out of deadline day with 26 players on their active roster - two goalies, eight defenders and 16 forwards. By placing a player or two on a junior B card, the Bombers’ roster will be compliant with the 25-player limit. 

“We feel that depth was key for us here. We went into the deadline thinking we wanted two defencemen and one, maybe two forwards. Then, when a guy like Gruener is available, you don’t pass it up, so we made that work,” said Reagan.

With the trades, the Bombers also now have nine 20-year-old players eligible to play - goalie Harmon Laser-Hume, defencemen Bax, Houle and McNutt and forwards Matt Egan, Justin Lies, Riley Niven, Smith and Jacob Vockler. The stack-up of players will mean that at least one of the 20-year-old players will need to sit out at any one time - only eight 20-year-olds are supposed to dress for any given game. Egan is currently serving the last four games of a six-game suspension and recovering from cancer treatment - he may be physically ready to play not long after the suspension ends.

Reagan harkened back to last season, when the Bombers had several top players and 20-year-olds get hurt in the run-up to the playoffs. Flin Flon still reached the finals, but with several top players stuck off the ice, the team was swept and lost.

“What I think people don’t realize is every time we’ve lost in the finals, we’ve tried to learn from it. Last year, we were missing five of our top six scorers. Our depth had to get us through that first round against Estevan. That took a toll on us the rest of the way and when we got to Battlefords, we ran out of gas. The injuries kept piling up and the guys who were playing weren’t 100 per cent and couldn’t play the way they needed to,” said the coach.

“We know for 20-year-olds, you can only dress eight. When we were in the Centennial Cup, we had three 20-year-olds out of the lineup. Last year in the playoffs, we had one or two out every game and were up to four at one point. We know there will be situations where not all nine can play, but if history repeats itself, we might not even have to make those difficult decisions because someone’s going to be banged up.”

Three Bomber players - Houle, Sylvestre and Vockler - have NCAA Division I scholarships lined up once their junior careers end. All Bomber players except for four - Anderson, Lies, McNutt and Riley Niven - are still NCAA eligible, including all five players acquired at the deadline.