More from Wednesday . . .

The Lethbridge Hurricanes and Tri-City Americans got together on a big one Wednesday. . . . The Hurricanes dealt F Mitch Fadden, 20, D Cam Stevens, 19, and D Brock Sutherland, 17, to the Americans for D Eric Mestery, 18, and F Drew Hoff, 20. . . . While the Americans will be looking for a move to inject some life into Fadden’s game, they also have been concerned about their depth on defence, so Stevens and Sutherland will slide right into their rotation. . . . Fadden had 89 points, including 34 goals, in 72 games last season but has only five points in nine games now. What this means is that Lethbridge’s Fab Four is down to three — Zach Boychuk, Dwight King and Colton Sceviour. . . . The Hurricanes, having lost D Luca Sbisa to the NHL’s Philadelphia Flyers, are looking for a defenceman who can play in their top two or three and are hoping Mestery will do that. . . . Stevens and Sutherland both are from Brandon.
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There is a story developing in the WHL that threatens to dominate the rest of this season and perhaps beyond.
There is a dire shortage of defencemen.
I’m not talking about top-end defencemen, those who are a team’s top two or three defencemen and run the first power-play unit. Teams always are on the lookout for players like that.
No, I’m talking about depth defencemen. Suddenly, they are as scarce as hen’s teeth.
Before making today’s deal with Lethbridge, the Americans actually made a trade with the Calgary Hitmen last week to acquire a 19-year-old defenceman to provide them with some depth. In recent history, how many WHL teams have brought in a 19-year-old to serve as their fifth, sixth or seventh defenceman?
At the time, the Americans were carrying only six defencemen and GM Bob Tory knew he was on thin ice. Unfortunately, the defenceman he acquired, Scott Maetche, suffered a concussion in his first game with the Americans and ended up retiring on Tuesday.
The Americans also had a couple of defencemen get nicked on the weekend and were down to four healthy blue-liners before making the deal with Lethbridge.
The Red Deer Rebels open a western swing against the Chiefs in Spokane tonight. Red Deer’s roster lists eight defencemen but two of them — Luke Egener (knee) and Justin Weller (wrist) — didn’t make the trip. Colin Archer (shoulder) is listed as day-to-day.
The Chilliwack Bruins have lost nine straight games, a slump that began with the loss of Jesse Craige (broken jaw). They also are without Matt Strong (shoulder). Neither player is expected back before Christmas. The result is that younger defencemen are being asked to play roles — and minutes — for which they aren’t yet ready.
Other teams are well aware of that and aren’t prepared to give any sympathy to the Bruins. In fact, it’s just the opposite. In beating the visiting Bruins 6-3 on Tuesday, the Kamloops Blazers really got after the Chilliwack defencemen.
“If you’ve got defencemen, especially if you’ve got really good ones . . . Vancouver is really controlling the league with that back end,” Jim Hiller, the Bruins’ head coach, said after Tuesday’s game.
Hiller then posed another interesting thought.
“You almost think that is really going to affect the bantam draft,” he said. “Defencemen are such a valuable commodity the forwards are going to be taken later.”
Darrell May, the Chilliwack general manager, wasn’t at Tuesday’s game. He was scouting. Presumably, he was looking for defencemen.
So was Tory, whose Americans were beating the visiting Kelowna Rockets, 4-1. Tory was at the World Junior A Challenge in Camrose, Alta. You can bet he was paying particular attention to the defencemen . . . in between phone calls to Lethbridge GM Roy Stasiuk, that is.