SJHL clubs have had nearly two months since the beginning of the regular season to get a feel for what they have and determine their needs. And now the trade winds are beginning to blow.
The Melville Millionaires became the first team to make major changes to their roster, announcing two significant trades on Friday.
The pre-season favourites have begun to turn it around after a slow start, but they remained only one game above .500 entering Tuesday's action.
On Friday, the Mils shipped 20-year-old forward Mark Owen and 18-year-old goalie Zach Rakochy to the Steinbach Pistons of the MJHL in exchange for 18-year-old forward Russell Trudeau.
Considering the Mils had already invested more than two seasons in Rakochy, handing him the starter's reins last year, and Owen had been producing at a point-per-game pace, this had to have been a difficult deal to make.
In Trudeau, the Mils get a promising youngster who potted 26 goals and 52 points for Steinbach last year as a 17-year-old. He also had 17 points through 19 games before the trade.
The risk with a player that good and that young is that he might leave on a scholarship before finishing his junior career. But it appears that at the very least, they've secured a player who can play a major role this year. He's off to a good start, having scored his first SJHL goal and added an assist in his first game against the Bruins on Saturday.
Later on Friday, the Millionaires announced they'd dealt 19-year-old winger Roger Tagoona to Battlefords for 20-year-old goalie Blake Voth.
Voth was the starter for the RBC Cup champion Vernon Vipers last year, although he didn't see any time in the national championship. He was dealt to the North Stars in the off-season as futures for forward Dane Muench. The Stars were already set in goal with Graham Hildebrand and Connor Creech, and when Voth returned from a USHL tryout, they shopped him around.
The tandem of Voth and 18-year-old Alex Wakaluk has to be considered one of the best in the SJHL.
Tagoona had an impressive rookie season last year with 40 points, but crawled out of the gate this year with just three points in 15 games.
Also on Friday, the Flin Flon Bombers traded 19-year-old defenceman Gabe Minville to the Portage Terriers for 19-year-old forward Andrew Allan. Minville had been acquired from Humboldt in the Andrew Johnston trade.
Another major news item broke Monday when the North Stars announced that star defenceman Woody Klassen is returning to the team after playing four games with the Greenville Road Warriors of the ECHL.
Klassen is one of the top defencemen in the SJHL and adding the 36-point rearguard should only make the league's top team that much stronger.
Josh Lewis can be reached by phone at 634-2654, by e-mail at sports@estevanmercury.ca, on Twitter at twitter.com/joshlewis306 or on his Bruins blog at bruinbanter.blogspot.com. Just remember when you tell him that we got five centimetres and it's "storming" outside that he grew up with Maritime winters.
