Gauthier for White

From The Daily News of Oct. 24, 2007

The Kamloops Blazers are walking a little -- make that a whole lot -- taller today.
That’s what happens when you welcome one of the WHL’s toughest hombres into your dressing room.
Just in time for games against perhaps their two toughest B.C. Division rivals, the Blazers acquired 6-foot-3, 200-pound defenceman Mike Gauthier, 20, on Tuesday in exchange for defenceman Ryan White, 20, and a fifth-round pick in the 2008 bantam draft.
Gauthier, from North Vancouver, was the third overall selection in the 2002 bantam draft and has played his entire career with the Raiders.
“I’m very excited,” he said. “I‘m able to get to play closer to home and for a pretty storied franchise. I’m very excited.”
His family -- parents Joan and Dave, along with twin brother Ted -- also were excited with the news, Kamloops being somewhat closer to North Vancouver than is Prince Albert.
“Yeah,“ Gauthier said, “they are excited to get to see me play a little more. That will be a little different.”
Gauthier’s ticket out of Prince Albert may have been written prior to last weekend when freshman head coach Bruno Campese stripped three players, including Gauthier, of their letters after a curfew violation.
“We paid the price,” Gauthier said. “There’s a new coach and some things are unacceptable. We made a mistake and had to learn our lesson.”
He may also have paid a price for the Raiders being 3-9-2-0 and 11th in the 12-team Eastern Conference going into last night‘s games.
Dean Clark, the Blazers’ general manager and head coach, said he did some phoning around before making the deal.
“All the things that I checked out and the info I got was that he’s a good kid,” Clark said.
Gauthier planned to drive to Edmonton yesterday and then to Kamloops today. If everything works out, he will skate with his new teammates Thursday and play Friday when the Kelowna Rockets visit Interior Savings Centre and Saturday against the visiting Vancouver Giants.
The Blazers had winger Matt Kassian riding shotgun with them for the last couple of seasons, but weren’t able to replace him when he graduated after last season. Until now, that is.
“We just got harder to play against,” said Clark, whose club is 5-6-1-0 and in sixth place in the 10-team Western Conference.
Gauthier, though, feels there’s more to his game than dropping the gloves.
“The past couple of years I’ve improved a lot,” he said. “This year, I wanted to be a complete player and not just a guy who can provide toughness. I think I started off doing that and that’s what I bring Kamloops, along with some toughness.”
When it comes to fighting, he said, he isn’t a thug who skates around looking for trouble.
“I’m not the big square off,” he said. “I’ll hit a guy and . . . or if someone challenges another guy, I’ll be the guy to step in.”
Gauthier was the WHL’s most-penalized player last season, with 264 minutes in 69 games. The WHL chooses not to include misconducts and game misconducts in its penalty totals, but if you add in his four misconducts and three game misconducts, the total is 334.
This season, Gauthier is fifth in penalty minutes, with 45 in 13 games. He also has incurred two game misconducts, meaning one more brings with it a one-game suspension. Gauthier also has six points this season, which ties him with White, who has two penalty minutes.
According to hockeyfights.com, Gauthier has been involved in 45 regular-season fights over the last four seasons, with 18 of those occurring last season. That was the fifth-highest total in the league and included bouts with Western Conference heavyweights Partik Bhungal of the Chilliwack Bruins and Frazer McLaren of the Portland Winter Hawks. Kelowna left-winger James McEwan, who will be in town Friday, of course, led the WHL with 25 scraps.
Gauthier was selected by the St. Louis Blues in the sixth round of the 2005 NHL draft. He attended one training camp with the Blues but never signed. Prior to this season, he went to camp with the Toronto Maple Leafs.
Clark had been talking of possible changes to his roster since late last week.
“We have to make some change and get people here who are a little more . . . Whitey was a good guy but I don’t know how much he brought us leadership-wise,” Clark said yesterday.
White, from Edmonton, joined the Blazers from the AJHL’s Fort McMurray Oil Barons midway through the 2005-06 season. He had 27 points and 47 penalty minutes in 121 games with the Blazers.
White is expected to be in the Raiders’ lineup for a home-and-home weekend series with the Regina Pats that opens Friday in Prince Albert.
This was the second trade of the season between the Blazers and Raiders. On Sept. 19, Kamloops sent goaltender Dustin Butler, 20, to the Raiders for a sixth round pick in the 2009 draft.
The Raiders visit Kamloops on Dec. 7; the Blazers play in Prince Albert on Feb. 29.
Having acquired Gauthier, Clark said he will continue to work the phones.
“I’ve been talking to lots of different teams,” he said, “but nothing’s concrete.”