Newly acquired Prince Albert Raider Regan Nagy wants to help his new hockey club win and make a push for the playoffs this year.
The Western Hockey League team traded for the 20-year-old right wing on Tuesday, announcing it had sent a second-round 2018 Bantam Draft pick to Nagy’s former team, the Victoria Royals.
Originally from Ogema, Sask., Nagy has spent his entire WHL career with the Royals, a point not lost on him.
“Yeah it’s tough to leave the Royals. I made a lot of good friends there – teammates I was with right from the beginning, so it was definitely hard to leave those guys.
“My billets, too. They’re great people.”
Ogema sits approximately 115 kilometres south of Regina; it has a population of about 400 people.
Growing up in southern Saskatchewan, Nagy played his Midget AAA hockey with the Moose Jaw Generals, prior to being drafted by the Royals in 2012.
He says it helps to be reacquainted with Raiders defenceman Brayden Pachal, whom the Raiders acquired in a trade with Royals almost a year ago on Jan. 9, 2017.
Pachal spent a season and a half on the Royals’ roster with Nagy after the team drafted the Estevan, Sask. native in 2014.
“I was excited to see him again and just hang out and be around a guy like that. It’s nice to have him here,” Nagy said.
The opportunity to play in front of friends and family is an added bonus as well. Such was a rare opportunity in Victoria, British Columbia, he said.
Between the Blades, Broncos, Pats and Warriors, the Raiders will play eight more regular season games on the road against the Saskatchewan-based teams, all opportunities for his friends and family to watch him play.
The team also has 19 regular season home games remaining this season, all of which his family and friends can attend.
Nagy joins a Raiders team that already has three 20-year-old skaters on its roster – Devon Skoleski, Jordy Stallard and captain Curtis Miske.
WHL rules state that a team can dress only three players in that age category.
Assuming all four players are healthy (Nagy is currently listed as injured on a week-to-week basis with an upper body injury), the club will have seven days to cut or trade one of its four 20-year-olds, according to the league office in Calgary.
If the team intends to make a trade, they’ll have to do so before Wednesday, Jan. 10 at 3 p.m. CST, this season’s trade deadline.
For more on this story, please see the Jan. 5 print edition or e-edition of the Daily Herald.
