The Prince George Cougars made a pair of trades in the first round of the WHL bantam draft on Thursday, and ended up with two of the first seven picks.
The Cougars started by trading the third overall choice in the draft, held in Calgary, to the Prince Albert Raiders, along with a third-round pick in 2013, for the second oevrall pick.
With that pick, the Cougars selected forward Jansen Harkins of North Vancouver.
Then, the Cougars traded the 11th overall pick, the 57th pick and forward Jujhar Khaira (who played last season with the Prince George Spruce Kings) to Everett for the seventh pick and forward Jari Erricson, a Prince George product.
Prince Albert Daily Herald
Photo Courtesy of Keith Hershmiller/WHL Reece Vitelli finished second in team scoring for the Prince Albert Raiders this season.
Forward Reece Vitelli and blueliner Remy Aquilon are the latest recipients of year-end awards by the Prince Albert Raiders as they received the Lionel Diehl Memorial Award for hardest working player and the Ches Leach Award for most improved player respectively on Tuesday.
Vitelli, who is 19 years of age and calls Winnipeg home, suited up in all 24 games in the Regina hub and was second in team scoring with 22 points.
He was also one of the top players for the Raiders in the faceoff department as he was successful on 61 per cent of his draws.
Auston Matthews replied with his NHL-best 41st goal of the season for Toronto (35-13-7), while Jake Muzzin, with a goal and an assist, and John Tavares also scored. Frederik Andersen made 24 saves in his return to the lineup following an eight-week injury absence for the North Division s No. 1 seed.
Toronto star Mitch Marner turned the puck over off the faceoff to start overtime to Brady Tkachuk, who in turn fed Norris to bag his 17th.
The Leafs close out their regular-season schedule Friday in Winnipeg against the Jets before opening the playoffs against the Montreal Canadiens next week the first post-season meeting between the Original Six rivals since 1979.
They ll also wonder at least on some level what might have been.
Josh Norris scored nine seconds into overtime Wednesday as Ottawa concluded its pandemic-shortened campaign with a 4-3 victory over the Toronto Maple Leafs.
The rebuilding Senators started the 56-game schedule a dismal 2-12-1 thanks in large part to some horrendous goaltending and miscast veterans, but went 21-16-4 from Feb. 13 onwards good for third in the Canadian-based North Division over that span after the crease situation improved and the organization handed its young core more responsibility. We re just rolling now, said Senators forward Connor Brown, who scored his career-high 21st goal in Ottawa s finale. We re really finding our stride. We re competing against the best teams every single night. We re not just squeaking out wins. We re really playing well.