Over the course of a few months, the Western Hockey League will enter its 2025-26 season a much different-looking league.
Following a landmark ruling by the NCAA last fall allowing major junior eligibility, the WHL has seen an exodus of some of its top 17- and 18-year-old talent south of the border, including Cole Reschny, Keaton Verhoeff, Roger McQueen, Jackson Smith and most notably, draft-eligible superstar Gavin McKenna.
While teams across the league have dealt with their new reality, the Saskatoon Blades have proven to be the exception — for now.
“We haven’t lost any (players) and other teams have lost some,” Blades president and general manager Colin Priestner said. “Our internal expectations have gone up a little bit. I think most teams lose anywhere from 50 to 100-and-something goals out of their offence from the previous year; I think we’re going to be adding about 20 (goals).”
Aside from their trio of overage graduates in captain Ben Saunderson, Grayden Siepmann and Tanner Scott, the Blades have brought back their entire team to camp ahead of the 2025-26 season.
That includes stars Cooper Williams and Hayden Harsanyi, who are expected to anchor Saskatoon’s top-six forward group this year.
They are each coming off breakout performances with the Blades and translated that success into their own NCAA Division I commitments over the course of the off-season, though they’ve chosen to return to Saskatoon to chase glory at least one more time.
“Saskatoon has never won a championship,” said Williams, who committed to the University of North Dakota. “We’ve all talked about it the whole year, how special this group can be to win a championship and coming here wanting to do it for us and for the city.”
Nominated for the Jim Piggott Memorial Trophy for WHL rookie of the year, Williams exploded in his first year with the Blades to lead all 2008-born players with 21 goals and 57 points in 68 games played.
As for Harsanyi, who committed to Colorado College over the summer, he was acquired mid-season in a trade deadline blockbuster deal with the Medicine Hat Tigers in exchange for Nashville Predators prospect Tanner Molendyk.
Netting 20 points in 30 games after arriving in Saskatoon from Medicine Hat, Harsanyi chose to return to the WHL after a 2024-25 campaign that saw him deal with injury and be passed over in the 2025 NHL draft.
“I came into this league as a first-round pick and I got a lot to prove, I feel like,” Harsanyi said. “Not getting drafted last year, getting hurt and having the season cut short, I just want to get that full season.
“Junior hockey is the best.”
While the duo have both announced their intentions to play NCAA hockey in the near future, Priestner isn’t closing the door on the pair being back in blue and gold next fall either.
He pushed back on the idea that it’s a foregone conclusion that both Williams and Harsanyi will bolt for college hockey at the conclusion of the 2025-26 season.
“My expectation is they’ll both be back next season as well,” Priestner said. “You never know what can happen in an off-season with the (NHL draft) or anything, but those are kind of future and down-the-road commitments. I know the college hockey (websites) sometimes just list a year, but Cooper called me before his visit and even said they never even spoke about years. That’s going to be when he feels he’s ready to go and he’s committed to winning here, and so is Harsanyi.”
When asked if this season would be his last in the WHL, Harsanyi was non-committal on whether he would be leaving for Colorado College next summer.
“I’m still figuring it out with that,” Harsanyi said. “Taking it myself, the Blades and Colorado (College).”
It was an identical tone from Williams when asked the same question, adding that his title hopes with the Blades are his focus heading into the regular season.
“That’s not determined yet,” Williams said. “I want to win a championship here first.”
The evolving landscape of junior hockey has changed the definition of contention windows in the WHL, with teams now having the ability to target younger, American talent who previously never thought of major junior hockey as an option to retain their NCAA eligibility.
Though the uncertainty of what teams will look like any given year is something all 23 franchises in the WHL are working through with the rule change, the Blades believe they are positioned to weather the storm of who will want to stay and who will want to go.
“Any guy is year to year now, really, if they choose to stay,” Priestner said. “I think we’re going to be a team that’s going to have hopefully a little less turnover than some because people really want to be here, we treat our players really well, we have an unbelievable arena to play in with an NHL-sized rink and a place with a winning tradition over the last 10 years.”
The Blades kick off a home-and-home series against the Moose Jaw Warriors on Friday to wrap up the pre-season on the road, before hosting the Warriors in Martensville on Saturday.
Saskatoon’s regular-season opener will be held in Prince Albert on Sept. 19, ahead of the team’s home opener the following night against the Raiders.