The North Bay Battalion has made a second trade in three days.
Hot off the heels of yesterday’s trade with the Owen Sound Attack (shipping Matthew Struthers to the Attack for three draft picks), the Troops acquired Chad Denault from the Peterborough Petes for a conditional 15th round pick in the 2024 OHL Priority Selection. The condition with the pick is if on Denault achieving personal accomplishments this year.
“We’re a very young team and what Chad brings is some experience,” head coach and general manager Stan Butler said at his weekly media scrum. “He’s a right shot, and the last guy we picked up who was from Iroquois Falls (Ryan Kujawinski), really picked up his game when he got here.”
“We have to look at possible overagers for next year, and he is a guy who could fit that,” Butler continued. “We’re hoping he will give some of our younger guys a sense of confidence, and hopefully for him with more of an opportunity, he can show his potential.”
“It all happened so fast, but that is the nature of the game,” Denault explained. “Being a northern boy, I am familiar with the location and it is great to be here.”
“This is my third year in the league so I have a lot of experience,” he continued. “I see myself as a hard-working, physical presence on the ice and I hope to bring a bit of a spark to these guys.”
Denault was a third-round pick, 49th overall in 2016 for the Petes. In 152 games, Denault has scored 11 goals, 12 assists for 23 points. This season in 23 games, the six-foot one forward has scored two goals with four assists for six points for the Eastern Conference-leading Peterborough squad.
Denault says that while the trade wasn’t necessarily a surprise, it has been a whirlwind.
“There were talks of it yesterday, but it wasn’t for sure,” Denault explained. “There was some uncertainty and unknown. I got the call around 6:30am, it is what it is and I am just really happy to be here and get rolling in North Bay.”
A self-described power forward, Denault feels he plays a strong defensive game and can help out on the penalty kill, which Butler thinks could be a strong role from this point onwards.
“He brings a physical presence,” Butler stated. “Hopefully he will help our penalty kill, and he is somebody that we felt would be a good fit for us going forward.”
“Chad has been a tremendous member of the Petes family and the Peterborough community,” Mike Oke, the Petes’ general manager, told the club’s website. “In addition to be an excellent teammate, he has been a great ambassador for our team over the last four seasons.”
Oke said the trade should “allow Chad the opportunity to play in situations that may not have been available to him in Peterborough.”
Denault also helps the team out in the future, as next season only Luke Moncada was slated to be an overaged player, meaning there would a lot of youth on the team, much like this season.
“We have a plan in place, and we made a decision rightly or wrongly to retool,” Butler said. “We want to try and get this thing going where we want to go, and we felt the only way to do that is play our young guys and accumulate draft picks.”
“Joe Vrbetic is the only starting goalie at 17 who didn’t play in the league last year,” Butler continued. “He’s going to play a lot of games this year, so hopefully that speeds up his development and same with our defencemen. Adam Dennis (assistant general manager and coach) wasn’t with the team this past weekend. Between him and our head scout, they’re going to be on the road a lot scouting our prospects and players for the coming draft in May.”
