Giants Sign Luca Leone

[Lucic]

The Vancouver Giants have signed 16 year-old forward Luca Leone of the Coquitlam Express.

Leone played two seasons at Shattuck St. Mary and is currently in his first full season with the Express. The Vancouver native has 4 goals and 2 assists in 29 games with the British Columbia Hockey League team this season.

The 6’0”, 190lbs forward will be joining the Giants on their upcoming Alberta road trip.

[Lucic]

Leone with an assist in his first WHL game. I thought he played well tonight. He didn't look out of place at all. In fact his line with Trzonkowski and Franson was arguably the best line for the Giants tonight.

[dondo]

I found this an interesting read regarding Rathjen and Leone

from Steve Ewen

Vancouver Giants general manager Scott Bonner did some building for the immediate future and, he’s hoping, the 2016 campaign on Thursday.

Vancouver nabbed the rights to goaltender Jared Rathjen, 18, from the Victoria Royals for an eighth-round pick in the 2013 bantam draft, and then inked free-agent forward Luca Leone, 16, who had been playing with the Coquitlam Express.

Both are expected to join the team in time for Friday’s visit to the Red Deer Rebels.

First with Rathjen.

It’s a safe bet that he’ll start in goal against Red Deer, in front of Tyler Fuhr, 17, who had been carrying the mail of late with Payton Lee, 16, away at the World Under-17 Challenge in Quebec.

Lee, as well as defenceman Reid Zalitach and forward Thomas Foster, are expected to re-join the Giants from the Under-17s in time for Saturday’s visit to the Edmonton Oil Kings.

Fuhr was decent against the Kamloops Blazers in Wednesday’s 4-2 loss, making 29 stops. On the flip side, he did give up at least four goals in all four of his starts with Lee away, including a nine-spot against those same Blazers, and, on the season, he has a 4.84 goals against average and an .826 save percentage to go with a 3-8-0-0 record.

Rathjen, a Prince George product, got a chance to be Victoria’s starter to finish the 2011-12 campaign, and went 3-5 in that eight-start stretch. He began the season there, but was shipped out after four appearances, losing his post to rookies Patrik Polivka, 18, a Czech, and Coleman Vollrath, 17.

His last Victoria game, oddly enough, was an Oct. 26 visit to Vancouver,when he was yanked after two periods for giving up three goals on 18 shots.

For his WHL career, he’s 5-11-2-0, with a 4.60 goals against and a .852 save percentage. From Victoria, he was re-assigned to the Alberta Junior A league’s Whitecourt Wolverines and went 6-4-1 there, with a 2.99 goals against and a .916 save percentage.

“I got up this morning and got a text from the Victoria GM and he said that I might be traded today,” Rathjen explained of Cameron Hope. “It caught me off guard.”

For what he hopes to do with Vancouver, Rathjen said: “I hope to play as much as I can and I hope to help them win.”

“I think I learned what it takes to be good at this level,” he said of his experience in Victoria.

Vancouver coach Don Hay has said that he doesn’t like running with three goalies for very long, and the plan, before netminder Liam Liston, 19, walked away from the team immediately after the Christmas break, was to make a move upon Lee’s return from the Under-17s.

It’s safe to assume that Fuhr is in harm’s way in that regard; they aren’t about to do anything with Lee, who is 6-10-0-0, with a 3.00 goals against and a .901 save percentage.

Now to Leone.

He’s managed four goals and six points in 29 games with Coquitlam to date but a rival WHL exec I talked to yesterday said that he’s got good hands and some nifty one-on-one moves. He’s not going to light things up right away, but he has potential to be a top-six forward down the line. He’ll be 19, of course, when the 2016 season rolls around and that, of course, is the year that Vancouver is hoping to host the Memorial Cup.

Vancouver has been after him dating back to the summer, at the very least.

Prior to this season, he spent three years at Shattuck-St. Mary’s, the Minnesota-based academy that lists Sidney Crosby and Jonathan Toews as products. He played his minor hockey at NSWC and he grew up in Kerrisdale.

He went to Giants games regularly, and he lists current Vancouver forward Dalton Sward as his favourite Giants player. Asked which NHLer he’d like to play like and he points to Rick Nash.