Dulle Acquired From Oil Kings

[MJCO5]

06/05/07 - Dulle Acquired From Oil Kings

June 5th, 2007 - FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

KAMLOOPS, BC – The Kamloops Blazers have acquired 19-year-old forward Kenton Dulle (DOO-lee) from the expansion Edmonton Oil Kings in exchange for 17-year-old goaltender Dalyn Flette.

Dulle, who was claimed by the Oil Kings earlier today in the WHL expansion draft, finished the 2006-07 campaign with the Saskatoon Blades after a mid-season trade with Vancouver. Dulle scored 4 goals and 7 points in 22 games with the Blades, including 3 goals and 6 points in his final 11 games, after putting up 4 assists in 26 games with the Giants.

“Kenton is a character player who approaches the game with grit and tenacity. We are really excited to have him join the Blazer family,” says Assistant General Manager Shane Zulyniak.

Dulle, a 5’11”, 170-pound right winger who hails from Regina, has played in 65 career WHL games with the Blades and Giants totalling 5 goals and 14 points.

[scamperdog]

Draft day hardly dull for Dulle
by Gregg Drinnan

Kenton Dulle was on the Deer Valley golf course near Lumsden, Sask., on Tuesday afternoon. He was on the 10th tee box, munching on a hot dog, when he realized the cellphone in his golf bag was ringing.

It was Lorne Molleken, the general manager and head coach of the Saskatoon Blades calling with the news that Dulle, a 19-year-old right winger, now was a member of the Edmonton Oil Kings, who had picked him in the WHL’s expansion draft.

Shortly after that, Dulle’s phone rang again. This time it was Dean Clark, the general manager and head coach of the Kamloops Blazers. Clark was calling to welcome Dulle to his team, having dealt goaltender Dalyn Flette, 17, to Edmonton for him.

“I was shocked,” Dulle said. “Shocked is the only way to explain it.

“But, after thinking about it, I’m happy with it. It’s great to be back in B.C., and I know the Blazers had a good season. Hopefully, next season will be even better.”

Flette, the 47th pick in the 2005 bantam draft, was 5-5-1-2 with a 3.01 GAA and a .868 save percentage. He got into 18 games, making 14 starts.

Flette’s departure moves James Priestner, 16, into the second hole on the Blazers’ depth chart, behind starter Dustin Butler, 20. From Edmonton, Priestner, the 31st pick in the 2006 draft, is one of six goaltenders invited to Team Alberta’s U17 camp in Calgary, July 10-15.

Dulle, from Craik, Sask., played his minor hockey in Lumsden, before joining the midget AAA Regina Pat Canadians.

The Vancouver Giants selected Dulle with the 106th pick of the 2003 bantam draft. He played 43 games with the Giants (one in 2003-04, 16 in 2005-06 and 26 this season) before being sent to the Blades in the deal that took winger Wacey Rabbit, 20, to the coast.

In 22 games with the Blades, Dulle had seven points, including four goals, and 27 penalty minutes. His career totals are five goals, 14 points and 63 penalty minutes in 65 games.

“I’m a smaller player,” Dulle, 5-foot-10 and 170 pounds, said. “I like to use my speed and create my own space.”

He admitted the new standard of officiating “helps the way I play and hopefully it will continue to help give me some success.”

Clark remembered Dulle from his stint with the Giants.

“He played pretty hard for Vancouver whenever we played against him,” Clark said, pointing out that Dulle replaces “the age we lost in (Brenden) Dowd.”

The Blazers lost Dowd, a 1988-born centre who had 15 points in 47 games this season, to the Oil Kings last week.

“(Dulle) fulfilled a role . . . played centre and wing, sometimes on the second line, sometimes the fourth,” Molleken told the Saskatoon StarPhoenix. “He’s got tremendous skill but some of (our) younger players were going to be ahead of him.”

As for the golf game, a chuckling Dulle said the front nine was “about as bad as it can get. The back was a little better . . . but it’s never good.”

• • •

By the time the other 21 WHL teams had met their obligations, Bob Green, the Oil Kings’ general manager, and his staff, including Randy Hansch, the assistant GM and director of player personnel, had added 22 players to their organization, 14 of whom played in the WHL this season.

Only the Regina Pats and Kamloops were able to cut earlier deals with the Oil Kings, meaning 19 teams each surrendered at least one player yesterday.

Players born in 1991 and 1992 weren’t eligible to be drafted, but the Giants made a deal that allowed Edmonton to take 1991-born centre Cam Reid, who was a seventh-round pick in the 2006 draft.

Reid, from Tsawwassen, had 51 points in 40 games with the Greater Vancouver Canadians of the B.C. Major Midget League.

There had been speculation that Green, who joined the Oil Kings from the Medicine Hat Tigers, would take goaltender Blaine Neufeld, 20, whom the Giants acquired from the Tigers this season. Instead, the Oil Kings took goaltender Alex Archibald, 20, from the Chilliwack Bruins.

In fact, the Oil Kings and Bruins made a deal whereby the expansionists took two players from Chilliwack, the other being Tyler Halliday, an 18-year-old right winger who is from Kamloops.

Halliday, originally property of the Red Deer Rebels, had 11 points and 150 penalty minutes with the BCHL’s Merritt Centennials this season.

The Oil Kings also selected two Edmonton natives, taking left-winger J.P. Szaszkiewicz from the Spokane Chiefs and centre Brent Henke from the Kootenay Ice. Szaszkiewicz was scratched from a game in Kamloops on Feb. 14 when he underwent an emergency appendectomy at Royal Inland Hospital.

JUNIOR JOTTINGS: Next up for WHL teams is the NHL draft, June 22-23 in Columbus, followed by the CHL import draft on June 27. . . . Former Blazers D Bryce Lampman has signed a one-year deal with TPS Turku in Finland’s top league. Former Buffalo Sabres D Hannu Virta is the head coach of TPS Turku and the roster includes former NHL defencemen Aki-Petteri Berg and Marko Kiprusoff and F Tomas Sinisalo, the son of former Philadelphia Flyers F Ikka Sinisalo. . . . Red Deer Rebels owner/GM/head coach Brent Sutter will serve as head coach of the Canadian junior team that will meet a Russian team in an eight-game series starting late in August. His assistant coaches will be Peter DeBoer (Kitchener Rangers) and Benoit Groulx (Gatineau Olympiques). The series will be played between Aug. 27 and Sept. 9. The Canadian roster, which may include Blazers D Keaton Ellerby, will be announced before the end of June, as will the locations of the Canadian games.

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