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Wolves deal struggling star forward to IceDogs

Move creates OA logjam in Sudbury including North Bay's Desrochers.
Jenys_DL_0404
Pavel Jenys moved to Niagara. Photo courtesy Aaron Bell/OHL Images.

Looking to address areas of weakness, the Sudbury Wolves made a splash Monday, landing import centre Mikkel Aagaard and defenceman Zach Wilkie from the Niagara Icedogs for import winger Pavel Jenys.

“In this deal, we feel we’re addressing two important areas right now,” said Wolves General Manager Barclay Branch.

"One is to hopefully ignite the offence a little bit, and then the second thing is to help try and keep some pucks out of the net. That’s to put it very bluntly, but in terms of them as players, they’re both players that have an abundance of experience both in the Ontario Hockey League and in the international stage, as well.”

Aagaard, a native of Denmark, is an overage player, a 20-year old who was taken with the 16th pick in the 2014 CHL Import Draft by the Icedogs. This is his second season in Niagara, netting 55 points in 79 games including three goals, 11 assists in 20 games this year.

He also captained the Denmark U20 team at the 2015 World Junior Championships.

“He’s got an abundance of an experience as well as leadership qualities,” said Branch.

Wilkie is a former 2nd round pick in the 2013 OHL Draft for the Icedogs.

The 18-year old from Villa Park, Illinois, is in his third OHL season and has 11 points and 111 penalty minutes in 107 games.

“Zack is an 18-year old defenceman that not only fits into what we’re doing now, but also moving forward, next year and possibly the year after. It’s hard to find good quality 18-year old defenceman in the OHL and we feel like we got one in this deal,” said Branch.

With the Wolves dead last in goals against at 115, 16 more than the 2-19-1-0 Guelph Storm, and tied for fourth fewest goals for in the OHL with 61, rumours were swirling that a trade was just around the corner.

“It was one of those things where the pieces kind of fit together and kind of came together rather quickly," he said. "It’s just a case that Niagara was able to provide us with a couple areas that we needed improvement in. Unfortunately, as is the case, whenever you’re getting something of quality, you have to give up something of quality. And unfortunately we had to move Pavel in this deal, who has been an unbelievable member of the organization for the past few years.”

Jenys showed glimpses of his offensive side at times this season, but had just four goals and eight assists in 24 games with the Pack.

Thats compared to 15 goals and 30 assists in 63 games last season, his first in the OHL.

“Not once did Pavel ever convey any negative feelings about anything to do with the organization or being with the organization moving forward,” said Branch. "It was more about just having an opportunity to add a couple of areas that we needed to add."

The deal puts the Wolves with four overage players, captain and North Bay native Danny Desrochers, Jacob Harris, Patrick Murphy and now Aagaard. 

But Branch said it doesn’t necessarily mean another trade is coming just yet.

“We’re looking every day to improve the team,” said Branch." I know that sounds like it’s a cliche, it’s not, it’s the truth and if there’s anything out there we feel will make our hockey club better, then we’ll seriously look at it. As far as our overage situation goes, you don’t like carrying four, you can only play three, but we’re not the only team in the league right now in that type of situation. It’s not uncommon at this time of year to be carrying four overages so it’s going to create a bit of competition in that area of our team which is never a bad thing and we have until the middle of January before we really have to decide on what we want to do in terms of who our three overages will be beyond on that point.”

Both Mikkel Aagaard and Zach Wilkie will be in uniform when Sudbury welcomes Hamilton to town on Friday.