One of the things I've learned in following junior hockey over so many years is that it's every bit as much about who steps up when given a chance to prove themselves as it is who you've lost. Best recent example I can think of on defence was about a half dozen years ago when with Robak and Hamonic moving on there was an opportunity for a rookie to take on a bigger role and a 16 year old kid named Ryan Pulock grabbed it and never looked back.
You can start with Daniel Bukac (import draft), who will be in camp:
Two young defencemen that were on the pre-season roster after camp last year were:
Garrett Sambrook (was able to get into a couple of regular season games last season)
Dane Hirst
From the 2014 draft, Ian Mitchell (2nd round) and Jarrod Gourlay (3rd round) were high picks that chose to play Junior A last year. I see that in December Gourlay committed to play NCAA as per http://www.juniorhockey.ca/news/news_detail.php?news_id=89349 and Mitchell as well as per http://www.juniorhockey.ca/news/news_detail.php?news_id=90614
I don't know if there's been any change in the intentions of either.
Imagine there'll be a good look at 1st round pick Braden Schneider, but he'll be 15 this year so of course won't be able to play full-time.
Another place to look might be the Wheat Kings' list of past Bantam Draft results at this link:
http://wheatkings.com/whl-bantam-draft/
The Sun usually does an extensive look at who's in camp... this is the week that you'd probably start expecting to see those kinds of pieces (no pressure Perry :) )
Edited by Adam, 2016-08-28 15:25:06