Well if practise number one is any indication, the Victoria Royals seem impressed with 20-year-old forward Alex Gogolev.

“He’s a really quick player, he can turn on a dime,” said Royals’ forward Jamie Crooks. “He’s got slick hands and he showed it on one of his goals that he scored. Right now he’s looking really good.”

The Russian forward was acquired by the Royals in a deal with the Calgary Hitmen that was announced Saturday. The price for Gogolev and a 2013 fourth round bantam pick was 18-year-old forward, and Olds, Alberta, product Zane Jones and a conditional sixth round pick. Gogolev had 25 goals and 57 points in 69 games for the Hitmen last season and was +17. Gogolev had six points in two pre-season games for Calgary, including a five point effort against Lethbridge on September 5 and his offensive skills certainly make the Royals a dangerous group up front.

“If there’s one thing that’s hard to come by in any league is natural scoring and production. We’ve got a pretty good group of offensive players already that score by committee, but this is the type of player that can bring you a game breaking style,” said Royals’ General Manager Cam Hope. “We felt it was worthwhile to go out and see if we could get him.

“There are no surprises with him. He’s a skill player and usually has the puck on a string and that’s what we expect,” said Royals’ Head Coach Dave Lowry. “He knows that it’s going to be a first class organization, much like the one he just left. We have a player who is excited; he knew he was in a battle with six 20-year-olds going into training camp in Calgary, so I think he’s pretty excited to be here.”

The Royals’ 233 goals scored in 2011-12 was twelfth most in the WHL during the regular season, and with many of the players that contributed to that total back in Victoria, Gogolev will help push the Royals higher in that regard. Gogolev still struggles with his English, but told reporters Monday that he started to play hockey when he was two years old and his dad is an Assistant Coach with Spartak Moscow of the Kontinental Hockey League. Gogolev even played for the KHL team, with three games played during the 2010-11 season. Lowry is very familiar with Gogolev since he coached with the Calgary Flames for three seasons after he was the bench boss for the Hitmen in 2008-09, and always kept track of Calgary’s WHL team.

“Put the puck on his stick and he’ll surprise a lot of our guys with the passes he’ll be able to make,” added Lowry “I expect him to come compete every day. He’s fortunate that he has a very high skill set and that’s what we expect.”

The Hitmen get quite a presence in front of the opposition’s goal in Jones. The Chilliwack Bruins’ fifth round pick in the 2009 WHL Bantam Draft, Jones produced 14 goals and 32 points in 68 games. He also had a goal and an assist in four pre-season games for the Royals prior to the trade. For Jones he will be headed close to home and to a team that really wanted his services.

“We didn’t like to have to give up Zane because he’s a big part of this team, but they asked for him and asked him, so we finally we put the deal together in a way that made sense,” said Hope.

The Royals are down to three 20-year-olds, with Mike Forsyth no longer on the Royals’ roster. Along with Gogolev, the Royals have last season’s scoring leader Jamie Crooks and defenceman Tyler Stahl in their overage year, a solid trio of 1992 players for the Royals to work with this season. The current roster is at 26 players, 14 forwards, nine defencemen and three goaltenders.

Six players are in their 19-year-old seasons, seven 18-year-olds, six 1995-born players and four 16-year-olds.

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The Royals certainly have reason to head into the regular season with some confidence, with a win in each of their final four pre-season games. It depends on who you talk to outside the dressing room on how much stock can be put into pre-season results, but the Royals are encouraged about the way they head into the regular season.

“I like the way our guys, even just watching video and just seeing some of the stuff we’ve implemented system-wise, coming together,” said Lowry. “A real positive, obviously, our last game at home, we had a really good start, let off the gas pedal a little bit and let them back in, but we found a way to come back and fight back to win a hockey game.”

“It definitely gives us confidence, we know we can win. We’re gelling as a team and we’re all really close,” said second year defenceman Brett Cote. “This is our second year together and we should do really good.”

Brandon Magee led all Royals’ players with six points in the pre-season and the players expected to lead the way, did.

“Brandon has been great, (Logan) Nelson has been great, and we haven’t seen much from Steven Hodges because of his injury,” said Hope. “Guys have been chipping in that we had expectations that their offence would pick up this year, guys like (Luke) Harrison and guys that don’t typically play that role game in and game out have been chipping in and I think we’re going to see more from those guys this year.”

Also, goaltender Patrik Polivka was third in save percentage in the pre-season at .963, which was tops among goalies that played in at least three games. Polivka turned aside 79 of 82 shots, with a goals against average of 1.41.

Only Kamloops, Spokane and Swift Current had more wins in the pre-season than the Royals, with five for each team. Starting Friday in Vancouver, we’ll see if that translates into early regular season success.

The Royals start on the road, but will have the next four games at home, with the home opener Saturday night against the Giants, with puck drop at 7:05pm.

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The WHL announced the 2012-13 WHL on Shaw schedule, which includes four Victoria Royals’ games, three of which at home. The first game to feature the Royals is November 20 against the Saskatoon Blades at the Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre. The next two are at home as well: December 5 and January 25 against Vancouver. The last game to feature the Royals will be February 15 when Victoria visits Red Deer. There is a total of 32 regular season games on Shaw, which starts this Thursday in Edmonton between the reigning champion Oil Kings and the 2011 champion Kootenay Ice.

This is the ninth season that Shaw will broadcast WHL games and with the NHL headed into a potentially long lock-out, this is a big opportunity for the WHL to feature its tremendous product to all Western Canadian hockey fans.

I was at Thunderbird Stadium Saturday for Canada West Football on Shaw and we started to talk about our plans for this week, with the game in Edmonton and then a second game in Saskatoon Saturday night. I got to say, I got real excited about getting back to the broadcasts this season, which will take us all the way through to the presentation of the Ed Chynoweth Cup in May.