The Moose Jaw Warriors saw a pair of players land spots on the National Hockey League Central Scouting midterm rankings announced Friday afternoon.
Forward Pavel McKenzie cracked the list at 170th among North American skaters and goaltender Jackson Unger is ranked 18th among North American goaltenders.
McKenzie has had a solid start to his rookie season, with the former Yorkton Terriers standout having put up 10 goals and 24 points in 37 games while playing most of the campaign alongside current NHL draftees Jagger Firkus (Seattle) and Brayden Yager (Pittsburgh).
The Cumberland House product joined the Warriors in the off-season after putting up 14 goals and 29 points in 46 games as a 17-year-old rookie in the SJHL.
Unger is in his second year of eligibility for the draft but has attracted all sorts of attention through the first half of the season thanks to his stellar play.
After being passed over in the 2023 NHL Draft, Unger has been outstanding from day one this season despite a massive workload -- he leads the WHL in minutes played (2,002), saves (1,083) and shots faced (1,181) while sporting the league’s 11th-best goals against average at 2.94 and sixth-best save percentage at 0.917. His 20 wins are also tops in the WHL.
Given past NHL Drafts, both players will be late-round picks if they’re selected at the NHL Draft, which takes place June 28-29 at the Sphere in Las Vegas.
The Warriors currently have seven NHL drafted players on their roster, including Firkus, Yager, defenceman Denton Mateychuk, forward Matthew Savoie (Buffalo) -- with the latter three all first rounders -- along with forward Martin Rysavy, defenceman Kalem Parker and defenceman Vojtech Port.
Moose Jaw returns to action on Saturday night when the Vancouver Giants are in town, Game time is 7 p.m. at the Moose Jaw Events Centre.
