Hurricanes select 13 players in WHL Prospects Draft

By Lethbridge Herald on May 19, 2022.

By Justin Seward

Lethbridge Herald

The Lethbridge Hurricanes completed the 2022 WHL Prospects Draft by selecting 13 players on Thursday.

The team drafted seven forwards, five defenceman and a goalie on the day.

Lethbridge began the draft by taking defenceman William Sharpe 11th overall.

Sharpe played last season with  the Yale Hockey Academy U15 Prep team where he accumulated 42 points in 21 games played.

“Well, we’re really pleased,” said Peter Anholt, Hurricanes general manager.

“I mean when you’re picking at 11, you’re not really sure what’s going to be there. We like this player a lot. He’s a top-end player, he could be a top-4 defenceman in our league, he pushes the pace, he pushes the puck up the ice. He has a lot of real key attributes that you  look at in a top defenceman.”

Anholt thinks the mindset heading into draft was they’re going to go in picking the best player.

“I think that’s  where we were at with this pick, is that we feel that this was  the best player at that time for us,” he said.

“We had [Sharpe] in the top-3 defenseman all year; to pick him at number 11, we are pretty ecstatic,” said Hurricanes head scout Rob MacLachlan. “He is a two-way defenceman, he can rush the puck, he can go end-to-end, he can score goals and he’s quick to get back on defence.”

The Canes then chose forward  Kash Andresen 33rd overall.

The Saskatoon native suited up for his hometown Bandits U15AA club last season and collected 57 points in 31 games.

Andresen  led the Bandits in regular season scoring and finished second on the team in playoff scoring.

“We really like our top four picks,” said MacLachlan. “We had Andresen projected to go higher in the draft, and to be able to get him where we did, we were very happy. He’s a good, two-way centerman that plays a 200-foot game and can score.”

The Hurricanes had a pair of third-round picks with first being goaltender Koen Cleaver at 48th out of the Pacific Coast Hockey Academy U15 Prep program.

The Port Alberni, B.C. native appeared in 15 games last season and posting a 9-2-2 record, a 2.85 goals against average, a  .910 save percentage and two shutouts.

Cleaver was the second goalie drafted by the team after taking Harrison Boettinger out of Shattuck St. Mary’s U14AAA club a day prior in the U.S. Priority Draft.”

“The big thing about goaltending is you need the depth,” said Anholt.

“We’ve continued to build our depth. We’ve got Thomson, Picklyk, Meneghin and Smith all year by year right down to the ‘05 (draft). We didn’t take a goaltender last year with the ‘06 draft. So we thought it was pretty important for us to continue to build that depth. And of course we took a goaltender in Boettinger in the U.S. draft with our first pick.”

Carsen Adair rounded out the top 4 at 55th overall and played for the Martensville Marauders U15 AA team.

Shea Busch was selected 121st overall out of the Yale U15 Prep team, Gage Nagel from the Notre Dame Hounds U15 prep was selected 147th overall,  Roghan Walker was picked 187th, Zachary Larmour was snagged at 204nd overall from the Northern Alberta U15 Xtreme Prep team,  Calgary’s Nate Crashley went 209th overall, Medicine Hat’s Cole Fisher was taken 231st overall, Kaden Woodcox from the Okanagan Rockets U15 AAA program was selected  253rd overall, the Canes took Lucas Hvidston at 275th overall and Rhett Vedress rounded out the drafting at 297th overall.

“Then from there, the later picks — we’ve had lots of players play for us as later picks,” said Anholt.

“We’ll let those players figure themselves out and show us what they can do and see if there is a diamond in the rough.”