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Starting with Finnish goalie, Vancouver Giants’ WHL campaign was peculiar as can be

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With apologies to Simon and Garfunkel, where have you gone, Jonathan Iilahti? A part of the Vancouver Giants’ fan base turns it lonely eyes to you.

Yes, the end of the WHL season can make you break into sad, sombre songs. A Giants season that had showed promise at Christmastime was over before Easter, thanks to a first-round playoff ousting from the Spokane Chiefs, who rallied from losing the first two games of the set to win four in a row.

The end of the season makes you think, too. For instance, what might have happened to the Giants if Jonathan Iilahti had shown up? Iilahti, 19, was the Giants’ pick, 39th overall, in the CHL Import draft last off-season. The Giants hadn’t come into the draft looking at selecting the Finnish netminder, but he’s a Vancouver Canuck sixth rounder from 2010 and the Canucks called on import day, asking for a favour. It made perfect sense for Pacific Coliseum crew at the time — the Giants were in need of a goaltender and owner Ron Toigo has always coveted players with marketing appeal, and what’s an easier sell in Vancouver than a Canucks prospect?

The problem ended up being that the Canucks, the Giants and Iilahti’s agent couldn’t get him out of his contract in Finland. His club team, the Espoo Blues, loaned him to Vaasa Sport, and he spent the majority of the year in the Finnish men’s second division, playing 12 games and fashioning a 1.80 goals against and a .934 save percentage, according to www.eliteprospects.com.

If he had arrived and been anything close to serviceable — he was listed on the Finns’ world junior team roster but didn’t see any action, for what that’s worth — Vancouver could have likely kept overage winger Michael Burns, a 6-foot-3 and 192 pounder who plays with an edge. Burns ended up being the centrepiece in the deal to bring fellow overage Adam Morrison to Vancouver from the Saskatoon Blades to be the starting netminder.

No Iilahti also meant an open Euro spot, but under league rules you can only use someone who has already been selected in the import draft, which means they had to find someone else’s cast-off. At midseason, they landed Russian winger Alexander Kuvaev, 18, a former Lethbridge Hurricane. Kuvaev  has a slickness about his game, but he could never fully catch on to the Giants’ system. He didn’t stop at the puck — he took the big, looping circle and then got back in the play.

Burns finished with 22 goals, 55 points and a plus-21 in 62 regular season games. Kuvaev had two goals, 13 points, a minus-seven in 34 league games. For the purpose of this exercise, we suggest that Iilahti provided something close to the netminding that Morrison brought — and Morrison was one of the top two or three Giants for much of the regular season — and then how do you like that trade? Iilahti and Burns for Morrison and Kuvaev? How many more wins is that?

It was that kind of year for Vancouver. It felt like they were building from behind all season. In the past, they had lost some battles — Dan Bertram and Kyle Turris no-showing on them — but always managed to find a way to rally — the agent JP Barry-induced trade for Wacey Rabbit the Memorial Cup year. This year, it was harder and harder to build on the fly.

They thought they had the big, burly winger that GM Scott Bonner has been coveting for several seasons now when they nabbed 6-foot-4, 230 pounder Austin Connor from the Prince Albert Raiders in October. Sure enough, Connor, 19, opted to retire instead, and Giants ended up with a 2013 fourth-round draft choice, to go along with prospect defenceman Arvin Atwal, 16.

First-line centre and team captain James Henry, 20, agreed with Bonner that a trade would do him best at the Jan. 10 deadline, and Bonner was elated to get two draft picks from the Moose Jaw Warriors for his rights. Bonner figured he could get a serviceable 20-year-old for a much lower price, but found that he had set the going price with the Henry deal. He opted against bringing in another overage. He nabbed injured winger Austin Fyten off waivers from the Lethbridge Hurricanes, and hoped that he could rehab his surgically repaired knee into game shape by playoff time.

It’s hard to be top-flight competitive in this league without high-end 20 year olds and Euros, and Vancouver went down the stretch minus an overage and with little production from Kuvaev.

There’s more, too, though. This was supposed to be the 19-year-old season in Vancouver for Mitch Spooner, the 19th overall pick in the 2007 bantam draft. This was supposed to be the 18-year-old season with the Giants for Zach Hodder, the 20th overall pick in 2008 and Luke Fenske, the 46th selection that spring. Spooner’s been long gone for some time, and both Hodder and Fenske were traded this year at their request. Also shipped out of town this season after asking for a deal was Tyler Hart, 19, a list player who was sent to P.A. in the Connor swap.

That should have been a big chunk of their core on defence this season, but, instead, Vancouver was scrambling to fill out defensive minutes down the steretch and into the playoffs with David Musil (broken wrist) sidelined.

Just consider Spooner and Hodder. If you leave out no-show Bertram, the Giants had got on base with every one of their prior first-round bantam picks and hit home runs with a bunch of them: Mark Fistric, Gilbert Brule, Jason Reese, Tyson Sexsmith, James Wright, Evander Kane.

Either GM Scott Bonner and director of player personnel Jason Ripplinger took the guys who didn’t fit with coach Don Hay’s methods, or Hay and the rest of the coaching staff botched the players’ development. It was probably a little of both.

No matter now.

It’s never dull with the Giants, and this summer will be no exception. Toigo has said that he wants to take a run at hosting the 2016 Memorial Cup, and rival league execs have raved about the Giants’ draft class from last spring, who would be 19 year olds by the time that tournament rolled around.

Hay will be rumoured for pro jobs once again. He didn’t do the world junior gig this winter for the free trip to Alberta; he was looking to up his profile and get back on the NHL radar. With old buddy Ken Hitchcock all the rage with the St. Louis Blues, how long before Hay is linked there?

Bonner had some pro interest from the Edmonton Oilers in the past, and he’s said to be tight with Tom Gaglardi, the Kamloops Blazers money man who now owns the Dallas Stars. There’s been some rumblings in the league that Gaglardi may want to take both Bonner and his brother Craig, the Blazers general manager, to Dallas and put them in the Stars player personnel department, although there are also people who will tell you that he’ll want Mark Recchi there, and he already has accomplished hockey minds in place in Joe Nieuwendyk and Les Jackson.

And what about Ripplinger? He’s been rumoured for WHL general manger jobs in the past while. How long before he decides to go run his own shop?

Who knows? Maybe Iilahti will come to Vancouver next fall and become the league’s first starting goalie/GM/coach?



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