[{"id":47175,"date":"2026-06-26T12:32:02","date_gmt":"2026-06-26T17:32:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-wheatkings\/?p=47175"},"modified":"2026-06-26T12:32:02","modified_gmt":"2026-06-26T17:32:02","slug":"plenty-of-wheat-kings-on-nhl-radars-as-entry-draft-looms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-wheatkings\/article\/plenty-of-wheat-kings-on-nhl-radars-as-entry-draft-looms","title":{"rendered":"Plenty of Wheat Kings on NHL radars as entry draft looms"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Rob Mahon<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Jun 25, 2026 | 4:27 PM<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The last time there were four Wheat Kings taken in a single NHL Entry Draft was 2020, and it\u2019s only happened twice in the last 25 years. With the NHL Entry Draft set for this weekend, the Wheat Kings could see another strong crop of young players take their first steps into the professional ranks.<\/p>\n

Five Wheat Kings have been ranked by NHL Central Scouting throughout the season, and four made the final rankings, with all four having jumped up from their previous ranking. It makes for a potential moment of pride for the organization, who have seen at least one player drafted in each of the past three drafts and seem certain to make it four.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s tempered excitement,\u201d said Wheat Kings director of hockey operations Chris Moulton. \u201cIt\u2019s one of those things where you have to go in with an even keel and hope the kids get rewarded for their play. I\u2019m excited. I\u2019m happy when the kids are mentioned in these types of conversations and the fact that some of them are going to go, or maybe all of them will go, that would be great. I\u2019m super proud of our group.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of all the players ranked by NHL Central Scouting, perhaps none is a bigger wildcard than goaltender Filip Ruzicka. Officially listed 6-foot-8, he steadily rose up the rankings all season and ended strong with a .936 save percentage in the playoffs. And goalies can be hard to predict on draft day, meaning he could go at almost any time.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s the craziest of them all when you think of where he\u2019s come from,\u201d Moulton said. \u201cGoing into the import draft, we had a plan. Part of that plan was to select a goalie but that wasn\u2019t locked in. When we came up to our pick, he\u2019s a really big human being and his agent is saying all the right things. I wouldn\u2019t say it was a risk, but it\u2019s one of those things where you take a shot. He was a little bit off the radar in his home country, probably wasn\u2019t getting the respect he deserved. You take a bit of a flier on a big body with athleticism and next thing you know, he\u2019s turning heads after Christmas.\u201d<\/p>\n

Among skaters, Gio Pantelas has been the leading Wheat King from start to finish, having ticked every possible box for a draft eligible skater. In addition to representing Canada at the Hlinka Gretzky Cup and Team CHL and Team WHL East at two different prospect challenges, the 6-foot-2 right-handed defenseman put up 37 points and a plus-19 rating in 68 games while playing with a physical edge.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s been consistent,\u201d said Moulton. \u201cWith all of these kids, they have their moments, I mean they\u2019re 17 this year. He came out of the gates flying, then there was a bit of a lull, but we relied on him heavily. At times it was a lot, but at times he managed. I still like the trajectory he\u2019s on, I think he did a lot of good things this year. He\u2019s finding his way, and his game has matured and he\u2019s really matured as a young man. I believe there\u2019s still work to be done, but that\u2019s a positive thing because it shows he hasn\u2019t plateaued. I think the sky is the limit for this young man as long as he keeps taking the steps.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pantelas may have been the top guy from the word go, but the honour of biggest final ranking rise went to another right-shot defenseman: Cameron Allard. The 6-foot-3 blueliner not only put up 19 points in 62 games with minimal power play time, he also leapt up 60 spots from 190th at the mid-term ranking to 130th in Central Scouting\u2019s final ranking.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe started to create some offense from the back end,\u201d said Moulton. \u201cHe was a guy that was just off the radar. The guys at Central Scouting, they\u2019re often looking for high end picks that are coming into our organization that were high end draft picks that find their way through. Here\u2019s a kid that was a later round pick and I\u2019m sure at times scouts came to watch Joby (Baumuller) or Gio and all of a sudden went \u2018Holy cow, who is this guy?\u2019 He\u2019s another guy who\u2019s had a lot of growth and has a lot of potential.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the subject of Baumuller, few prospects anywhere in the CHL had a bigger leap forward than he did. After being passed over in 2025, Baumuller responded beautifully, exploding from 18 goals to 40 in his third season as a Wheat King.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat he did and where he came from was special,\u201d Moulton said. \u201cJoby is a great kid, and I cheer for him all the time. He\u2019s had some frustrations over the years and just kept working, kept staying the course, kept his head up, kept being a good teammate and a good Brandon Wheat King, and with that came more opportunities. He\u2019s always been a guy that can shoot the puck and now we\u2019re putting him in spots where he can shoot the puck. He showed he had some jam to his game, and I think that helped too. Once people realized he\u2019s not a guy to mess around with, it probably gave him some more space.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the start of the year, Jimmy Egan found himself ranked as W for Wildcard by Central Scouting. He put up solid numbers despite a defensive role (22 points in 68 games) and scored the first goal of the postseason for Brandon. The 6-foot-1 Minnesota native demonstrated he could play in all three zones, something NHL teams are quite keen on.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think he showed a lot of maturity and a lot of patience,\u201d said Moulton. \u201cHe was kind of up and down the lineup a little bit, and he had different wingers on different nights. Our coaching staff definitely found the value in him as the year went on. He was taking important faceoffs and playing a defensive role a lot of nights, and I thought he did an exceptional job. He\u2019s one of those kids where this coming year, I\u2019m like \u2018Ok Jimmy, it\u2019s your turn. It\u2019s your turn to grab the bull and take those opportunities.’\u201d<\/p>\n

Last season, the Wheat Kings and the hockey world in general got a reminder that Central Scouting rankings don\u2019t determine whether a player is taken on draft day; Brady Turko, although he hadn\u2019t made Central Scouting\u2019s final list, had clearly done enough to impress the people making the decisions, and the Anaheim Ducks selected him. And with a new rule change meaning CHL players can stay on an NHL team\u2019s list for four years rather than two, expect to see a few other surprises as teams select players they now know they can afford to wait on.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was the thing, you always saw guys from other junior leagues who were getting picked because they had a longer time to be patient,\u201d Moulton said. \u201cNow they can be patient with our guys. Some of those mid to later round guys, there will be more from our league and the CHL because NHL teams will be more patient with them. I think that\u2019s a big bonus for our guys.\u201d<\/p>\n

Round one of the NHL draft goes on Friday night, while Saturday morning will see the beginning of rounds two through seven.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Rob Mahon Jun 25, 2026 | 4:27 PM   The last time there were four Wheat Kings taken in a single NHL Entry Draft was 2020, and it\u2019s only happened twice in the last 25 years. With the NHL Entry Draft set for this weekend, the Wheat Kings could see another strong crop of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":509,"featured_media":47176,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"article","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[265],"tags":false,"class_list":["post-47175","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-article","category-265","description-off"],"acf":[],"featured_image":["https:\/\/media.chl.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/65\/2026\/06\/26122844\/dsc-8040-scaled-1-scaled.jpg",2560,1703,false],"hide_from_app_feed":false,"video":false,"gallery":null,"ht_game_id":0,"target_video":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-wheatkings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47175","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-wheatkings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-wheatkings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-wheatkings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/509"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-wheatkings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47175"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-wheatkings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47175\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-wheatkings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47176"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-wheatkings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-wheatkings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-wheatkings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":47168,"date":"2026-06-25T12:33:22","date_gmt":"2026-06-25T17:33:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-wheatkings\/?p=47168"},"modified":"2026-06-25T12:45:46","modified_gmt":"2026-06-25T17:45:46","slug":"rob-mahon-talks-with-wheat-kings-pick-mason-corkish","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-wheatkings\/video\/rob-mahon-talks-with-wheat-kings-pick-mason-corkish","title":{"rendered":"Rob Mahon talks with Wheat Kings\u2019 pick Mason Corkish"},"content":{"rendered":"