Carlin Dezainde got caught up the numbers game that limits WHL rosters to a maximum of three 20-year-olds .
As a result, he’s been traded by the Prince George Cougars to the Swift Current Broncos.
The Cougars sent Dezainde and a ninth-round draft pick in 2025 to Swift Current for 2005-born forward Van Eger, a second-round draft pick in 2025 and fourth-round pick in 2027.
Eger, a 19-year-old native of Willow Bunch, Sask., had three goals and three assists in 31 games with the Broncos in 2023-24. He was held without a point in two games this season playing for Swift Current.
Eger played 19 games last season in the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League for the Notre Dame Hounds, scoring six goals and 14 points.
Dezainde was part of a three-team trade on Dec. 28, 2021 and came to the Cougars from the Medicine Hat Tigers. In 160 games with the Cats he scored 40 goals and collected 96 points.
This year through seven games he had a team-leading six goals and 10 points.
WHL teams are allowed to carry more than three 20-year-olds and can swap them in and out of the lineup while dressing no more than three in each game until the mid-October deadline.
The return of right winger Koehn Ziemmer, sent back to Prince George Monday by the Los Angeles Kings, left the Cougars with four overagers, including defenceman Viliam Kmec and forwards Dezainde and Borya Valis.
“Dez (Dezainde) has turned himself into a real good WHL player that could help any team,” said Cougars general manager and head coach Mark Lamb, in a team release. “It is not a trade we wanted to make but with Ziemmer coming back, the business part of the game comes into play.”
