2020- Pats New Year Thoughts

[Reider]

I felt that in the big picture, the Pats needed to do two things this year. 1) Sell at the deadline in order to acquire more 2020 draft picks, which they did and 2) Finish ahead of the Swift Current Bronco's in the standings, mainly because of the 2020 bantam draft implications with Swift Current and Saskatoon. The Pats are currently 19 points ahead of the Bronco's with 14 games remaining in the regular season. Barring a complete Pats meltdown and Bronco's surge, the Pats should finish ahead of the Bronco's in the standings. As a result, the Pats have a very good chance of getting a top 3 pick in the 2020 bantam draft, possibly the #1 overall pick, depending on how things play out between now and the draft.

Carson Denomie and Drew Englot have been productive acquisitions for the Pats this year. Denomie already has 20 goals this year and should be a productive OA for the Pats next year. What makes it even better is that he is from Regina. Englot could certainly be a 20+ goal scorer next year. Heck, he could get there this year if he has a strong finish to the season. I'd say he's doing very well for being in his 17 year old season and he should only get better from here on out. Speaking of players in their 17 year old seasons, I was hoping that the Pats would get more production out of Cole Dubinsky this year. Conservatively, I was hoping that he would score 10 goals this year. So far he's at 5 (the same amount of goals that he scored last year) + 2 shoot out goals. Hopefully he can have a strong finish to the season as well.

I became a Ryker Evans fan the first game I saw him play last year and he's only going to get better from here on out. The most disappointing part about it is that he may only be with the Pats for another 1/2 season. If the Pats get off to another really bad start next year and Evans keeps getting better, there may be a lot of teams interested in his services at next year's deadline. That doesn't mean that the Pats would trade him for sure, but it's not out of the realm of possibilities. This year, I felt that Ty Kolle was a no brainer trade piece for the Pats at the deadline and next year may be Ryker Evans, as disappointing as it would be. However, I hope he finishes his career in a Pats uniform because of what I think he's capable of doing in this league before his time is done.

Shout out to Robbie Holmes, who is having a respectable, if not solid OA season so far. Those two 4 point games were fantastic.

Riley Krane still has a decent chance of scoring 20+ goals this year.

Austin Pratt's goal totals are down this year, but his points per game is up, which is good. He still has a chance of scoring 20+ goals this year as well.

It's just been a really tough couple of years, made worse by the fact that the Pats did not win any Championships (WHL or Memorial Cup), when they had all of those elite players. What a shame. And it doesn't look like they're going to be competing for a Championship anytime soon either, which is also unfortunate. Basically, from here on out they need to have a strong finish to the season, then nail all 3 drafts in the summer (US, Import, Bantam) in order to help expedite their road back to the top of the standings. After last year's debacle, I'm not very confident that this leadership group is capable of getting the drafts right next summer.

The Pats need to get a high end import forward into the line up next year. An elite import defenseman would work too. That would still be a lot better than not having an elite import on the roster at all.