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Tipped Off
03-25-2005, 10:07 AM
From the Everett Herald - 3/25

Wheat grows in Everett
Silvertips' center has gone from bust to team MVP

By Nick Patterson
Herald Writer


EVERETT - Flash back to the summer of 2003 and Torrie Wheat's career is at a crossroads.

The former first-round Bantam Draft pick was coming off two seasons of toiling on the Swift Current bench. He'd just been traded to what was expected to be the Western Hockey League hinterland. And even with an expansion team he found himself struggling during training camp.

The whispers were beginning. Wheat was a bust.

Wheat had hit bottom in his hockey career. But as much as any Everett player, Wheat has used his time with the Silvertips as a ladder, elevating his game one step at a time. And now he's leading Everett into the playoffs as the team's Most Valuable Player, finally realizing his potential.

"He's the best player I've ever played with, flat out," Alex Leavitt, Wheat's linemate, said. "I've played with some guys who are very skilled but pretty poor defensively, and I've played with some guys who were excellent defensively but couldn't put the puck in the ocean if I passed it to them. But Wheatie's just so sound in all the areas of the game. There's no doubt in my mind he was our MVP."

Wheat's done it all for Everett this season. As the center on the Tips' top line Wheat, an assistant captain who turned 20 Wednesday, led the team in scoring with 57 points and in goals with 25. As a mainstay on Everett's power play, he finished tied for eighth in the Western Hockey League with 14 power-play goals. As Everett's top penalty-killing forward, he helped the Silvertips produce the best penalty-killing percentage in the entire Canadian Hockey League.

"I was happy with my season," Wheat said. "Reflecting on what happened, it went well for me, I accomplished a lot of my goals. I still have a lot of work to do to become the player I want to be, but I'm headed in the right direction."

Eighteen months ago no one could have predicted Wheat would be where he is now. Not that there wasn't hope for a player who was selected 16th overall in the 2000 Bantam Draft.

"I think guys who have natural abilities and have displayed them at any point in their career are capable of producing those again," Everett coach Kevin Constantine said. "Sometimes they've got to get their own game back and sometimes they just need the confidence of playing a lot and believing in themselves."

Wheat needed both.

Wheat lost the edge to his game sitting on Swift Current's bench. Although he suited up in 129 games his first two seasons, usually he was limited to a handful of shifts each game. In the 2002 playoffs he dressed for all 11 of the Broncos playoff games, but played a grand total of two shifts.

And the loss of that edge led to a loss of confidence. So when Wheat arrived in Everett along with Mitch Love in a trade for Expansion Draft pick Matej Trojovsky, he was starting from scratch.

"I felt like I'd totally forgotten how to play hockey," Wheat said. "I knew I had it in me, that I could be a decent player in this league. I just had to start from square one again and it's been gradually getting better ever since."

The rebuilding process began at the start of last season, when he received a regular shift at right wing on Everett's checking line. His defensive prowess was immediately evident and he quickly added a regular shift on the Tips' penalty kill.

Then in the playoffs last season, the line of Wheat, Mark Kress and Curtis Billsten broke out as Everett's most effective. Wheat tied for third on the team in playoff scoring with 10 points and was second in plus/minus at a plus-10.

Wheat seemed destined to reprise his role on the line with Kress and Billsten this season when the Silvertips were thrown a curve. Riley Armstrong, Everett's offensive leader, signed a professional contract during the preseason, leaving a gaping hole at No. 1 center. The coaches hung a help-wanted sign in the locker room, which Wheat answered.

And Wheat became every bit as indispensible as Armstrong was expected to be.

"When you look at an MVP you ask, 'What player, if he wasn't there for you every night, would you just be lost without?'" Constantine said. "He was just a guy who you'd lose too much in too many areas. So in that sense I think he's had a fantastic year. He's really blossomed."

And he no longer has to worry about being labeled a bust.