The Cowichan Valley Capitals were involved in a handful of deals at the B.C. Hockey League trade deadline on Thursday, but only one player from the active roster was shipped out.
By the end of the day, the Caps had bid farewell to forward Lucas Vanroboys while adding an 18-year-old forward, a 19-year-old defenceman and a 20-year-old goaltender.
The rambunctious 19-year-old Vanroboys went to the Prince George Spruce Kings in a three-way deal that saw Cowichan receive the rights to WHL goalie Shane Farkas from the West Kelowna Warriors, while forward Garrett Worth went from Prince George to West Kelowna.
Acquired from Nanaimo during the offseason, Vanroboys played 27 games for Cowichan, compiling seven goals and seven assists and a league-leading 87 penalty minutes. He was also suspended three times for a total of 15 games.
Farkas, a 1999 goalie has spent the last two seasons with the Portland Winterhawks, and isn’t expected to see any action with the Caps. This season, he has gone 24-9-3 in 39 games with a 2.86 goals-against average and .901 save percentage.
In a separate transaction on Thursday, the Spruce Kings also signed former Capital Nicholas Wilson, who had been playing for the junior B Richmond Sockeyes.
The Caps were also involved in a four-team, six-player trade that saw them land forwards Lach Hadley from the Victoria Grizzlies and Cruz Cote from the Grand Prairie Storm of the Alberta Junior Hockey League. The rights to forward Ty Pochipinski, who recently opted to return to junior from the NCAA ranks, went from Cowichan to the Penticton Vees in the same deal.
The 5-foot-10, 175-pound Hadley, an 18-year-old Victoria product who played for Shawnigan Lake School’s prep team in 2016-17, has three goals, six assists and 24 penalty minutes in 38 games with the Grizzlies this season and six goals, nine assists and 63 penalty minutes in 87 career BCHL games. Cruz, a 6-foot-1, 205-pound 19-year-old from Falher, Alberta, has 11 goals, 14 assists and 43 penalty minutes in 43 contests this season. He has four years in the AJHL under his belt, all with Grande Prairie, totalling 26 goals, 29 assists and 213 penalty minutes in 172 games.
Pochipinski led the Caps with 21 goals and tied for the team lead with 38 points over 58 games in 2017-18, his second season in Cowichan, before starting this campaign at Colorado College. He got into four games there, scoring one goal, then decided to come back to junior. Pochipinski’s dad, Trevor, was on Penticton’s national championship team in 1985-86.
The Caps also added 20-year-old goalie Pierce Diamond, who started his day with the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League’s Flin Flon Bombers, then was briefly property of the Estevan Bruins and finally ended up with Cowichan. The Edmonton native played 24 games with Flin Flon this season, going 14-7-2 2.78, .915. He spent the previous three years in the AJHL, and is committed to NCAA Div. III Albertus Magnus College for next season.
The acquisition of Diamond gives the Caps three goaltenders — not including the injured Matthew Waite — and a full complement of six 20-year-olds.