Tyler Bunz’s long-time dream came true Saturday afternoon.
Not only was the St. Albert goalie selected on day two of the NHL Entry Draft, he was scooped up by the Edmonton Oilers. With their fifth-round selection, general manager Steve Tambellini used the team’s 121st overall pick on the 18-year-old.
“It’s pretty exciting,” said a nearly speechless Bunz, about 20 minutes after receiving the good news. “I don’t even know what to do right now.”
Bunz was home in St. Albert with his parents, watching the draft unfold on TV.
“They were doing an interview [with a player drafted earlier], so I couldn’t see my name. I kind of heard Bunz, but I wasn’t sure, so I kind of listened in a little more,” he said. “And then I got a phone call from my agent, and he said ‘Congrats.’ I said, ‘I don’t even know what team I went to,’ and he said ‘The Oilers,’ and then my family went nuts and they started screaming.”
After that, he began fielding phone calls from friends, his brother in the Northwest Territories and from other family members congratulating him.
Bunz, who has played the last two seasons with the Medicine Hat Tigers of the Western Hockey League, said getting picked by the Oilers, who have been his favourite team his entire life, put his draft-day moment over the top.
“It’s something special,” he said. “I’m kind of in shock right now. I can’t really believe it, so it’s just a great feeling that I’m having right now. I’m looking forward to going to camp there and showing my stuff.”
After the initial shock wore off, Bunz recalled an interesting moment from earlier in the day.
“I actually woke up this morning and I don’t know why, but I told my dad, ‘I bet you I go fifth round to the Edmonton Oilers,’ and it’s kind of funny that I actually did,” the six-foot-one goalie said. “I just had that feeling.”
Part of that great feeling came because of the interview he had with the Oilers at the NHL scouting combine last month in Toronto.
“They had a lot of good things to say about me and they were happy with how my season ended,” Bunz continued. “It was more of a fun interview.
“I felt really comfortable sitting in front of those guys like Steve Tambellini. They made the room more comfortable than any other team that I talked to, so it was overall just a good feeling sitting with them and ever since then I had that expectation to be drafted by them.”
The thought of playing with the number one overall draft pick, Taylor Hall, the prolific scorer who can be seen on billboards across the Edmonton area already, didn’t escape Bunz.
“It’ll be a great experience being able to meet him,” he said. “And actually, one of the guys that is coming up to my Medicine Hat Tigers’ team this year, Tyler Pitlick, was also drafted to the Edmonton Oilers [31st overall], so there is going to be a couple guys that I’ll be looking forward to meeting.”
Pitlick, a centre, played at Minnesota State University last season, scoring 11 goals and eight assists in 38 games, but has decided to join Bunz on the Tigers.
At the start of the 2009/10 season, Bunz was a 17-year-old starting goalie, a rare feat in the WHL. He played in 22 games as a 16-year-old rookie, but now the spotlight was all on him and Bunz said he went through his struggles at the start of the year.
“I didn’t know how to handle that, but I had all the tools for stopping the puck to take into games,” he said. “It was just a matter of being more consistent and doing it day in and day out.”
Bunz improved steadily throughout the year, and by the end of the regular season he boasted some of the best statistics in the league. His record was 31-19-3-2, which was fifth overall in the WHL and the most wins of anybody born 1992 or later. The closest player of the same age was Kent Simpson of the Everett Silvertips, who finished with 22 wins.
In addition, Bunz played in 57 of his team’s 72 games, tied for fourth in the league. His 2.91 goals-against average was tied for 13th and his .898 save percentage was 22nd.
In the playoffs, he led his team to the eastern conference semifinal against the Calgary Hitmen, the eventual league champions.
Since the end of the playoffs, he attended a camp for Canada’s world junior team. He didn’t get an invite to the next camp later in the summer, but the coaches told him he’s still in the running and could get invited to the December evaluation camp with a strong start to the WHL season.
He also had the chance in Calgary to meet a possible future teammate, Oilers goalie Devan Dubnyk, who was a goalie coach at the camp and demonstrated some of the drills that were being taught.
“He was there before and he knows what to expect going to that next level, so it was good to have him around and talk to him about what it takes to be at that next level,” Bunz said.
