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Stay-Puft
11-28-2005, 04:16 PM
The Portland Winter Hawks today acquired 17-year-old defenseman Mike Mc Donald from the Tri-City Americans in exchange for a 7th round choice in the 2006 WHL Bantam Draft.

The Hawks are trying to get through a rash of injuries on their blue line. Portland lost the services of defenseman Justin Mazurek for the season due to shoulder surgery, defensemen Cameron Cepek and Max Gordichuk are out indefinitely with wrist injuries, and defenseman Scott Gabriel is out indefinitely with a neck and shoulder injuries, as well as a concussion. Gabriel was hurt as a result of the major penalty for elbowing that was assessed to Tri-Cities’ forward Jason Beeman in Saturday night’s game in Memorial Coliseum.

In addition, the Hawks are likely to lose the services of defenseman Michael Funk, and perhaps defenseman Michael Sauer, for as many as ten games from December 11-January 7 while they play in the World Junior Tournament.

McDonald had been dropped from the Ams’ roster and was in the process of being assigned to a tier two Jr. A team when today’s trade was finalized. He is 6’2, 210 and originally was originally an 8th round draft pick of the Vancouver Giants. He had (0-11-11) with no penalty minutes in 11 games of Jr. B hockey with North Delta, B.C. last season. McDonald dressed for 9 games this season for Tri-Cities, posting no points, 6 penalty minutes and a -9 rating.

“Mike is a young player that Tri-Cities saw had some potential,” said GM Ken Hodge. “We are hoping, given this opportunity to show us what he can do, he will excel here.”

Hodge said he is not going to make any blockbuster deals to solve what the Hawks are hoping is a short-term problem.

“We are not going to break up our hockey club because Cepek, Gordichuk and Gabriel will all be back some time and they are quality players,” Hodge said. “We feel good about the personnel we have on our blue line when they get back, so we are just going to have to do the best we can at getting through the short term.”

“We are not the only team looking for defensemen, which is making it tougher to find players to help us right now,” Hodge added. “Kamloops is down to five defensemen, Everett is just now getting healthy again, and several other teams are shopping. I am just very limited on what I am willing to give up.”