The Regina Pats are entering the 2008-09 WHL campaign with some questions on left wing.

They hope Tomas Hricina is the answer.

Regina selected the 18-year-old native of Slovakia, a centre/left winger, with the 27th pick in Thursday's CHL import draft. If all goes well, Hricina will be slotted into the left side on one of the Pats' top two lines. Michael MacAngus and Rudolf Cerveny, who can also play centre, are Regina's only established veterans at that position.

"Down the left side we don't have nearly as much (depth) offensively," explained Pats GM Brent Parker. "We didn't think we needed a right winger and we have decent depth on the blueline so our bigger need was up the middle and on the left side. That's what we were looking for. It's an area we keyed on."

The Pats moved up 24 spots from their original position in the draft by swinging a trade on May 1 with the Everett Silvertips. Regina acquired the 27th pick in exchange for its first-round selection in next year's draft.

"We had Tomas fairly high on our list," said Parker. "Lots of Russian players were taken this year, which is a change from the past. So that changed things a little bit in terms of how it was going to play out. We're excited to get him. Hopefully he'll be a good player."

Hricina spent last season with the Kosice junior team in Slovakia, notching 28 goals and 50 points in 57 games. The 6-foot-2, 198-pounder was also the leading scorer for his national team at the recent world under-18 championship with five goals (tied for second in the tournament) and one assist in six games.

"The fact he had a good under-18 against the top players (in his age group) was encouraging to us," said Parker. "We haven't seen him (in person) but (the International Scouting Service) had a good report on him and some of the other people we spoke to think he has a chance to be a pretty good player. He fits what we were looking for. He gives us good size and skates pretty good. By all accounts he has a pretty good touch around the net and isn't shy about finding his way to scoring areas. He has a good hard accurate shot. He should be a sniper but so much of it depends on how they develop over here and how they get comfortable with the North American game."

That's why Parker refuses to get his hopes up.

"You're probably kidding yourself (if you do)," he said. "There are certain cases where there's teams that have (top-end) guys put away for them where they're paying exorbitant transfer fees and such. We had two or three guys where the NHL teams told us they would come here but the agent already had a deal in the Ontario league or in the Quebec league. We're not finding it's an issue getting them to come to Regina as much as the agent in some cases placing these kids where they can get some money."

The Pats don't anticipate having any trouble securing a commitment from Hricina.

"We've got everything confirmed; he'll be coming," said Parker. "I guess until you see the whites of his eyes you're never sure 100 per cent but we're pretty confident from the discussions we've had with his representation already that there would be no issues."

Central Scouting ranked Hricina 68th among European skaters heading into the 2008 NHL entry draft. Despite being one of the top-rated players in Slovakia, he went undrafted last weekend.

"What happened is a lot of the Czechs and Slovaks this year, very few of them got drafted because the Czechs were relegated (to Group B) in the under-18 pool," said Parker. "A lot of (NHL) guys we talked to, they didn't get as good a look at these guys this year and because of that not as many of them got drafted. Our job now is to get him to have a good year and get him drafted next year."

The OHL's Sudbury Wolves used the first overall pick on Russian sniper Nikita Filatov, whom the Columbus Blue Jackets chose sixth overall last Friday in the NHL entry draft.

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