Kienan Draper’s heading back to the BCHL this season

Red Wings prospect Kienan Draper left the BCHL’s Chilliwack Chiefs to play in the USHL with the Omaha Lancers after the BCHL had to shut down due to coronavirus protocols. Draper had a rough time in Omaha, posting only 7 points in 37 games.

Both the BCHL’s website and the Chilliwack Progress’s Eric Welsh report that Draper will delay his time at Miami of Ohio for one more season to return to Chilliwack for his 20-year-old season:

A 2002-born forward from Michigan, Draper was with the Chiefs for extended training camp last fall, and produced four goals and five points in 10 games. He left soon after to join the USHL’s Omaha Lancers, but the 2020 Detroit Red Wings draft pick is back.

“Last year, he was in a situation where, with the uncertainty of the season, he wanted to make sure he was able to play some games,” [Chilliwack GM Brian] Maloney said. “I couldn’t look at him with a straight face and tell him we were 100 per cent having a season, so he took an opportunity to go down south. We’re pretty excited to have him back. He really started to figure our league out with our structure and everything before he left. He’s a big body that can play a heavy game. He skates well, but what we really like about him is how he can shoot a puck, especially on the fly. We have to get creative in finding ways we can put him in position to get that shot off next year.”

Continued; here’s hoping that this is the best move for Draper’s development.

Published by

George Malik

My name is George Malik, and I'm the Malik Report's editor/blogger/poster. I have been blogging about the Red Wings since 2006, when MLive hired me to work their SlapShots blog, and I joined Kukla's Korner in 2011 as The Malik Report. I'm starting The Malik Report as a stand-alone site, hoping that having my readers fund the website is indeed the way to go to build a better community and create better content.