Wenatchee Wild – Looking to the Future – Trade Three Stars

With the WHL trading deadline coming next Wednesday, the Wenatchee Wild dealt three of their stars to recover draft picks from the franchise's past WHL trades.

Two of the three - Conor Geekie & Matthew Savoie recently represented Canada in the ongoing IIHF 2024 World Junior Ice Hockey Championships in Sweden.

After weeks of speculation - the Wenatchee Wild officially announced two major trades. The team traded Conor Geekie to the Swift Current Broncos and Matthew Savoie to the Moose Jaw Warriors. The team also announced Ashton Cumby going to the Seattle Thunderbirds. 

Matthew Savoie’s trade saw Moose Jaw handing the Wild: Two coveted first-round picks (in 2024 & 2027), plus a 2026 second-round pick, a 2024 third-round pick, a 2027 fourth-round pick, a 2024 sixth-round pick, and a 2025 eighth-round pick.

Conor Geekie’s trade involved Swift Current sending over four quality draft picks and three good players.

The Geekie trade involves Swift Current sending Wenatchee defencemen Josh Fluker & Sam Ward, plus forward Maddix McCagherty. The Broncos will also part with two of their first-round picks in 2025 and 2026, plus a 2025 second-round pick, and a 2027 seventh-round pick.

Skimming through the past month of Swift Current lineups: The Broncos have used McCargherty in their 3rd line of forwards, and Fluker in their third line of defencemen - while Ward last saw action, once on Dec 8th - in their third line of defense. 

With Swift Current sending two defensemen our way - it only made sense that the Wild would deal with one of its backline players. The choice to send Ashton Cumby to Seattle in exchange for a 6th round draft pick in the upcoming summer draft has some comedy.

Ashton traded blows with Seattle’s Simon Lovsin in Wenatchee's 5-1 thrashing of the T-Birds on New Year's Eve in the Wolves Den.

The Wild are the former Winnipeg Ice franchise- who relocated here last summer. Winnipeg went into “win now” mode trading away their future - that resulted in two deep playoff runs with trades that included sending away scores of WHL draft picks. Bliss Littler, on one of his recent visits to the studio, showed me a spreadsheet of the Wild's position in the upcoming drafts.

The Wild were staring down the barrel of zero draft picks in the first 5 rounds for the next three years.

These three trades will help maintain quality hockey in Wenatchee for the coming years.

INFO: Wenatchee Wild