Raymond Grewal had his wish granted yesterday.
The 19-year-old defenceman is back in the Western Hockey League after the Prince Albert Raiders acquired his rights from the Prince George Cougars in a trade for a 12th-round pick in the 2015 bantam draft.
"I'm very excited that things worked out," said Grewal. "It's always been the mindset since I've been here to get back to the WHL. It's out of your hands a bit because you don't know what's going on with other teams. But I just came to the Spruce Kings and played pretty well, I felt, and just let the chips fall where they did."
The six-foot-two, 185-pound Prince George native woke up Friday expecting to play for the Spruce Kings, who hosted the Chilliwack Chiefs Friday at the Coliseum. His plans changed when he got the call from Raiders general manager Bruno Campese to inform him about the trade.
Grewal played the past two full for the Cougars and has 129 career WHL games under his belt. During that time he collected one goal 18 assists and 61 penalty minutes. The Cougars sent him to the Spruce Kings just before the WHL season began. In 20 BCHL games with the Kings he picked up four goals nine assists and 28 penalty minutes.
"The biggest difference [between the BCHL and WHL] is the strength of the players and the quickness of the plays -- the plays develop a lot faster at the Western League level," Grewal said. "The players are obviously more mature and stronger.
"There is a lot of individual skill in the BCHL and players who are committed to high-end colleges. I played a ton of minutes with the Spruce Kings and I'll just be able to insert into the [Raiders] lineup. I knew people in the Spruce Kings organization and they helped me tremendously throughout the year and I couldn't be more grateful for that."
The Raiders, who beat the Cougars 5-2 Wednesday at CN Centre, are missing defencemen Sawyer Lange and Hunter Warner, both out with upper-body injuries. Grewal is the second defenceman the Raiders have acquired this week. On Tuesday they picked up 20-year-old Colton Hefley from the Kelowna Rockets.
Grewal is booked to board a flight this morning for Kelowna, where the Raiders will play the first-overall Rockets tonight. He'll be reunited with Raiders centre Jordan Tkatch, his teammate with the Cougars for two seasons before Tkatch was dealt to Prince Albert this summer.
