Blazers trim forward from roster

By GREGG DRINNAN
Daily News Sports Editor
The Jesse Sinatynski experiment is over . . . at least for now.
The WHL’s Kamloops Blazers released Sinatynski, an 18-year-old forward, from their roster on Thursday, although he will stay on their protected list.
The Blazers gave the Brandon Wheat Kings a 2011 fifth-round draft pick in exchange for Sitanyski on Oct. 13. He played in three games with the Blazers, scoring one goal, and was a healthy scratch in the other.
A native of Fort Saskatchewan, Alta., Sinatynski is expected to end up with an AJHL team. He was a 13th-round pick by the Wheat Kings in the WHL’s 2007 bantam draft.
“I made the deal the day before the waiver draft,” Blazers general manager Craig Bonner explained, referring to the day when each WHL team had to get down to a maximum of three 20-year-old players. “I didn’t think (Shayne) Neigum was going to be available.”
Neigum, 20, was placed on waivers by the Chilliwack Bruins and the Blazers claimed him.
“I thought we needed one more forward,” Bonner said. “When Neigum became available, we ended up with too many guys again.”
In Sinatynski, Bonner was looking for the player he had watched total 64 points and 154 penalty minutes with a midget AAA team in Fort Saskatchewan two seasons ago.
“He played with a lot of passion,” Bonner said. “I knew he wasn’t a great skater, but he was a real competitive guy.
“The one thing I really liked about him was his passion for the game. He was that kind of player and he made up for his deficiencies with that. It just seems that that has been lost. That happens to some players.”
Last season, with the Wheat Kings as the host team for the Memorial Cup, Sinatynski got into just 27 games, putting up 10 points and six penalty minutes.
“After his year in Brandon, it seems he lost a bit of that competitive edge that we were looking for,” Bonner said. “After watching him, it seems the passion is gone.”
Bonner, now with 24 players on his roster, didn’t want to have an 18-year-old who was in and out of the lineup.
“For his own sake he needs to go back to junior A and play and try to find that passion again,” Bonner said. “Hopefully,  he can go and have some success and we’ll see.
“It’s in his hands what he wants do do.”
—————
When the Blazers opened training camp in late August, they were faced with a real lack of depth at the goaltending position.
That doesn’t appear to be the case anymore.
The Blazers now hold the rights to nine goaltenders, including Jeff Bosch, 20, and Jon Groenheyde, 19, who are on their roster, and Josh Thorimbert, 18, who is a freshman with the Colorado College Tigers.
Also on the Kamloops protected list are Cole Cheveldave, 17, of the AJHL’s Drumheller Dragons; John Keeney, 17, with the USHL’s Omaha Lancers; Braden Krogfoss, 15, who is playing midget AAA in Cloverdale; Scott Lapp, 15, who is playing midget AAA in Semiahmoo; Troy Trombley, 16, who is with a midget AAA team in Fort Saskatchewan; and, Taran Kozun, 16, with the midget AAA Prince Albert Mintos.
The Blazers placed Cheveldave on their list following the AJHL’s Showcase Weekend early in October, while Lapp earned a spot on the list with a strong performance in the Blazers’ training camp.
“The plan was to draft two goaltenders,” Matt Recchi, the Blazers’ director of player personnel, said. They were only able to draft one — Krogfoss — so a decision was made to “list the best one out of camp.”
“Lapp was real good at camp,” Recchi said, noting that “we kept him through to main camp. He was that good.”
Keeney, who is from Twin Peaks, Calif., is 2-1 with a 1.92 GAA and .927 save percentage in three games with Omaha. He now is partnered with Todd Mathews, 20, who was dropped by the WHL’s Kootenay Ice at the 20-year-old deadline. Mathews, from Covina, Calif., lost his only start with the Lancers.
Thorimbert, from Saskatoon, is one of three goaltenders with the Tigers, the others being sophomore Joe Howe and senior Tyler O’Brien. Howe has started five of the Tigers’ six games and is 2-2-1, 1.99, .928. Thorimbert gave up three goals on 19 shots in winning his one start.
JUST NOTES: The Blazers are at home Saturday, 7 p.m., to the Seattle Thunderbirds. . . . F Matthew Needham, the Blazers’ first pick in the 2010 WHL bantam draft, has 19 points, including nine goals, in 18 games with the Penticton-based Okanagan Hockey Academy U-18 prep team. He picked up nine points in his last three games. . . . F Cody DePourcq, who is on the Blazers’ list and also is at OHA, has 21 points, including 13 goals, in 19 games.

gdrinnan@kamloopsnews.ca
gdrinnan.blogspot.com
Taking Note on Twitter

Blazers add grit to roster

By GREGG DRINNAN
Daily News Sports Editor
Craig Bonner spent Thursday watching the WHL waiver wire.
Early in the afternoon, the general manager of the Kamloops Blazers finally saw a name that piqued his interest.
So left-winger Shayne Neigum, late of the Chilliwack Bruins, will be in the Blazers’ lineup tonight when they play host to the Portland Winterhawks. Game time at Interior Savings Centre is 7 o’clock.
Neigum, 20, got caught in the numbers game in Chilliwack. Each of the WHL’s 22 teams had to declare a maximum of three 20-year-old players yesterday. The Bruins chose to place Neigum on waivers, while keeping goaltender Lucas Gore, who is from Kamloops, and defencemen Jeff Einhorn and Brandon Manning.
“Neigum is a guy I looked at before,” Bonner said of the fourth-year WHLer from Kindersley, Sask. “Obviously, he wanted to stay in the WHL, so he’s excited.
“I felt we needed another competitive forward and he will provide that.”
The Blazers have met the Bruins twice this season, with Neigum playing in one of those games, a 5-2 Chilliwack victory here on Sept. 25. A fractious, in-your-face type of player, Neigum was far from beloved in the Blazers’ dressing room.
“Yeah, I know,” Neigum said with a laugh. “If I am liked, I’m not doing my job. Kamloops is a good rivarly. I’m sure there’ll be no hard feelings.
“I’m going to a good situation. I’m pretty familiar with them . . . we play them quite a bit. It’s tough leaving the guys and the staff behind, but it’s a good move for me.”
Neigum sounded relieved that the wait was over in Chilliwack. He admitted that it can be taxing.
“She’s been a seven-month wait, I guess, when you boil it down,” he said. “But it was a total roller-coaster ride. One day you play well and the next day you sit out, and you’re just not sure.”
Neigum was a fourth-round pick by the Medicine Hat Tigers in the 2005 bantam draft. He also has played with the Edmonton Oil Kings. Last season, with Chilliwack, he had 24 points and 189 penalty minutes in 72 games. This season, he is pointless, with 17 penalty minutes, in four games.
The Blazers and Bruins next are scheduled to meet on Jan. 7 at the ISC.
“That’s a big day,” Neigum said. “I already looked.”
Neigum, 6-foot-0 and 185 pounds, joins goaltender Jeff Bosch and defenceman Corey Fienhage as the Blazers’ 20-year-olds.
Meanwhile, Bonner also cut a deal yesterday as he acquired forward Jesse Sinatynski, 18, from the Brandon Wheat Kings for a fifth-round pick in the 2011 bantam draft.
“He put up big numbers in bantam and midget,” Bonner said. “He’s gritty, and hard-nosed . . . another competitive forward to add to our group.”
Sinatynski, a 13th-round pick in the 2007 bantam draft, had 10 points, including seven goals, and six penalty minutes in 27 games with Brandon last season. This season, he had two points and six penalty minutes in seven games. Two seasons ago, with the midget AAA team in Fort Saskatchewan, he put up 64 points, 31 of them goals, and 154 penalty minutes in 32 games.
Sinatynksi is expected to join the Blazers on the weekend so won’t play tonight or Saturday against the visiting Prince George Cougars.
The Blazers now are carrying 26 players, including two goaltenders and 16 forwards. That also includes defenceman Josh Caron, who is on long-term injury with a broken collarbone.
———
The Blazers may have RW Jordan DePape (shoulder) back in the lineup tonight as he took part in a full practice Thursday. RW Chase Souto (concussion) remains sidelined.
Both were injured in a 6-1 loss to the Bruins in Chilliwack on Oct. 2. Neigum was a healthy scratch that night.
———
A scoring change has been made to the Blazers’ fifth goal in their 5-4 victory over the Rockets in Kelowna on Wednesday.
Originally scored as an unassisted goal by D Bronson Maschmeyer, the goal has been awarded to RW JC Lipon, his first of the season, with assists to Maschmeyer and C Dalibor Bortnak.
Lipon was ruled to have tipped in a point shot from Maschmeyer, who had received the puck from Bortnak.
———
The Winterhawks, meanwhile, are 6-2-0-1, good for second in the U.S. Division, two points behind the Tri-City Americans (7-3-1-0), who have played two more games.
But indications are that the Winterhawks haven’t played all that well of late. They swept a weekend doubleheader in Spokane, winning 3-2 on Friday and 2-1 on Saturday. But Portland was outshot 48-19 in the opener and 35-24 in the second game, with goaltenders Mac Carruth and Ian Curtis, both fresh off the injury list, sparking the victories.
The Winterhawks also got big efforts from their penalty killers, who were 17-for-17 in the two games.
On Wednesday, however, the Winterhawks were whipped 5-1 by the visiting Calgary Hitmen.
Prior to facing the Hitmen, Mike Johnston, the Winterhawks’ GM/head coach, told Steve Brandon of the Portland Tribune that “people may have overrated our team a little. If we had (Nino) Niederreiter back, then maybe they could rate us like that.”
The Winterhawks were seen by many observers as favourites to win the Western Conference. Niederreiter, the fifth overall pick in the 2010 NHL draft, remains with the New York Islanders. In fact, he scored his first NHL goal Wednesday in a 2-1 loss to the Washington Capitals.
———
JUST NOTES: Sinatynski’s father, Vince, is a former scout with the Americans. . . . . Johnston will have gotten a scouting report on the Blazers from Garry Davidson, his director of player personnel. Davidson watched the Blazers lose 5-4 to the visiting Vancouver Giants on Monday.

gdrinnan@kamloopsnews.ca
gdrinnan.blogspot.com
Taking Note on Twitter