In a pair of deals at the junior hockey trade deadline on Wednesday, the Cowichan Valley Capitals added a defenceman and shipped off a forward.
The Caps brought in blueliner Domenic Masellis from the Surrey Eagles, while sending forward Raphael Gosselin to the Rockland Nationals of the Central Canada Hockey League in Ontario. Future considerations went the other way in both trades.
Capitals head coach and general manager Brian Passmore had stated earlier this week that he was looking to add a defenceman at the deadline, and Masellis fits the bill. The 6-foot-3, 225-pound 20-year-old has played the last five years in the B.C. Hockey League, compiling 28 points on seven goals and 21 assists in 214 games with Surrey, Langley, Penticton and Coquitlam, and adding 275 penalty minutes. He has three goals, four assists and 44 penalty minutes in 34 games this season.
“He won’t be with us this weekend,” Passmore clarified on Thursday morning as his team embarked on a three-game road trip to Prince George, Vernon and Surrey. “He’ll probably be coming back with us.”
The Caps had been carrying five regular defenceman lately, filling the sixth spot with a series of APs, and occasionally putting Gosselin on the blue line. A top scorer over three years in the Quebec junior A circuit, the 20-year-old put up only four goals and six assists in 35 games with the Caps this year and had asked to be traded closer to his home province.
“He struggled for points this year,” Passmore noted. “We had him on different lines, trying to find a fit. He was happy here, but he wanted to be closer to home where he could be looked at by some schools out east.”