KEARNEY, Neb. – Recent injuries to defensemen forced the Tri-City Storm to be active at the trading deadlineThursday, acquiring two defenseman from the North American Hockey League in Donovan Gardiner from the Lone Star Brahmas and Grant Hutton from the Corpus Christi IceRays.
In exchange for Gardiner, Tri-City sent forward Thomas Aldworth to Lone Star, while Hutton was acquired in exchange for future considerations.
Including these most recent moves, the Storm have now made seven trades in the past month.
“Given our injury situation we’ve been in the market for defensemen for quite some time,” said Storm head coach and general manager Jim Hulton. “It became apparent that Cutler Martin won’t be back this season. With injuries last weekend to Sean Lang who is also out for the season and Daniel Fritz, it expedited our needs.”
“We wanted to add some size and right-shooting defenseman. Fortunately we were able to acquire that in both Gardiner and Hutton. Gardiner’s a 20-year old who brings junior experience. Hutton is 18 but he’s big at 6-foot 3-inches. They will complement the players we have here and we think it provides a lot more depth in our lineup.”
Gardiner, who originally hails from Sterling Heights, Mich., played in 38 games this season with the Brahmas. The defenseman has four goals and three assists. A season ago, Gardiner played 45 games in the NAHL for three different teams including Texas, Kalamazoo and Janesville.
Hutton was in his second year with Corpus Christi and has six goals and 13 assists in 43 games played. The defenseman has also spent time on the power play and has five goals and six assists on the man-advantage.
A season ago, Hutton played in 42 games, putting up 10 points with a +16 rating.
The Carmel, Ind. native is now reunited with his former teammate Jalen Schulz, who played on the blue line with the IceRays last season.
Aldworth played in 29 games in his first season with the Storm, scoring three goals and one assist.
“In order to acquire a defenseman there’s a price to be paid and that was Thomas Aldworth,” Hulton said. “We’d like to thank Thomas for all he’s done for the Storm. We think he’s a player with a ton of potential that just needs to go to a new setting and get some confidence. We wish him well and we hope he returns to this league in the future.”
Both defensemen are expected to join the team on the road and make their debut this weekend.
Tri-City is preparing to begin a six-game road stretch starting in Waterloo on Friday night at 7:05 p.m.
The Storm will be back at the Viaero Event Center to face Lincoln on Feb. 22 at 7:05 p.m.