Trade Deadline: Sutter unlikely to swing for the fences
Don’t expect Red Deer Rebels GM Brent Sutter to be involved in a blockbuster trade at or before the WHL deadline of 3 p.m. next Wednesday.
He almost certainly won’t swing any deals in the same realm as the mega transactions that went down Thursday with Wenatchee Wild star forwards Matthew Savoie and Conor Geekie — both members of the latest Canadian junior national team — traded to the Swift Current Broncos and Moose Jaw Warriors for a king’s ransom.
Without a first-round pick in the 2025 WHL Prospects Draft (linked to the 2022 acquisition of Mats Lindgren from the Kamloops Blazers), Sutter won’t sacrifice any more of his team’s future to bring in a big name.
“Not at the prices being paid out there. I’m not going to do that. It has to come internally,” he said Thursday morning.
Sutter is happy with how the Rebels have performed over the past two months and believes the team as currently constructed can continue to improve through the remainder of the regular season and make a serious post-season run.
“You think about it and you go through a lot of things (leading up to the deadline), but since the first part of November we’ve been really happy with our group,” he said. “We’ve certainly seen strides with our younger players.
“We can still improve and get better in areas of our consistency, especially with our top players. But look at our record since we went on the road trip to BC, our game has changed with how we need to play. Players have put more accountability on themselves to get their level of play to where it needs to be.
“From our perspective, from the management and coaches perspective, we’ve taken strides and we won’t be getting into the same sort of some of these trades being made. We still have to develop players, we still have to draft well. If you need to add to it at certain times you do that. But where we’re at today . . . I like our team, I like where we’re at.”
The Rebels have received outstanding goaltending this season, possess a strong defensive corps and are sixth in the league on the penalty kill with an 82.1 per cent success rate.
However, the team must find more offensive production moving forward. Red Deer has found the back of the opposition net just 101 times this season, fewer than any other Eastern Conference team and more than just two other teams — the Blazers and Seattle Thunderbirds — overall.
Sutter pointed to an ailing power play, 20th overall with a success rate of 18.8 per cent, as a major reason for the lack of goals.
“Our kids have been getting better, our goaltending has been good and we feel we have one of the top D in the league,” he said. “Would we like to score more? I like to think that we score more if our power play is better, it goes hand in hand.
“Kids have to shoot pucks more, generate more around the net. Early in the season we weren’t scoring five-on-five but were scoring on the power play. When the team started playing better we were scoring more five-on-five but not on the power play.
“The power play is a reflection or your top players. You need your top guys to be good on it, they have to be productive. Our power play certainly has to get going here.”
On a positive note, overage forward Carson Latimer (pictured above) is likely just a few weeks from returning to active duty after suffering a lower body injury in late November.
His eventual return can help the Rebels power play and be similar to a trade acquisition, albeit two to three weeks after the deadline.
“We’ll know more on Monday, but he’s closer than we originally thought,” said Sutter. “We’re hoping, depending on how things go once he starts skating, that he’ll be back maybe sometime near the end of the month.
“He’s been cleared to start skating soon. It will be just a matter of his conditioning and getting up to speed on everything.”
While Moose Jaw, Swift Current and the Saskatoon Blades have swung big trades in a bid to improve their rosters, Sutter said there are no guarantees when it comes to playoffs.
“The reality is you have some teams in our conference that have upgraded and on paper look much better,” Sutter acknowledged, “but through it all you have 11 teams and only one is getting to the league finals.
“You need your game going in the playoffs. You need your specialty teams going, you need luck and you have to stay away from injuries.
“There are often upsets and we can beat anybody at any point in time if we play the right way.”
Sutter didn’t rule out making a tweak trade between now and the deadline.
“What’s going to happen Jan. 10, who knows? But right now we like our team where we’re at,” he said.
Just don’t expect a blockbuster deal that would require surrendering top draft picks/promising prospects.
“We want to be a highly competitive team year after year, not a one and out team,” he said. ‘So you have to manage it the right way.”
