Albany acquires Ethan Walker & seventh overall selection for Andrew Kew & Ethan Woods
Andrew Kew
The significant rebuild of last year’s Albany FireWolves forward cast continued on Wednesday afternoon when the team sent high-profile scorer Andrew Kew and backup goalie Ethan Woods to the Georgia Swarm for pro prospect Ethan Walker and the seventh overall selection in the 2022 NLL Entry Draft.
After this morning’s flurry of transactions involving the extremely active FireWolves, Albany GM Glenn Clark will now own the fourth, seventh and seventeenth selections in next month’s draft. During the 2021 draft, the FireWolves had just a single pick inside the first 60 selections.
Ethan Walker, 2021/22 NLL Media Day (Photo: Ryan McCullough)
The FireWolves are now without their top four scorers from last year, Joe Resetarits signing with Philadelphia, Ryan Benesch going back to the Halifax, and Reilly O’Connor traded to New York earlier today.
Albany finished with the third lowest team-goal total last year. A season earlier, the then New England Black Wolves owned one of the league’s higher scoring offensive units, led by Callum Crawford, who would later sign with the Riptide via free agency.
The Swarm, who saw long-time starting stopper Mike Poulin retire recently and last week lost goalie prospect Aden Walsh to the Vancouver Warriors through free agency, are likely set with Craig Wende and now Woods between their pipes, although neither has seen significant minutes, starting or otherwise, in the NLL.
Jordon Durston & Andrew Kew
Kew, whose name has come up in trade talks in the past, was a Rookie of the Year Finalist two seasons ago, more than doubling his goal production during his sophomore pro season last year (33G), which was also his first full campaign in the league.
Taken tenth overall in the 2020 NLL Entry Draft, Walker scored just 8 goals in the ten games he got into last winter, but should see more meaningful minutes with the FireWolves, who are looking to replace a significant statistical sum after Resetarits, Benesch, O’Connor and now Kew are no longer with the team.
The 121 goals last year’s top four point producers accumulated in Albany made up 64% of the team’s total goal production in 2022. The only returning FireWolves forwards who registered double digits in the goal column are Jacob Ruest (21) and Charlie Kitchen (14).
As part of this morning’s trade action, Albany acquired forwards Kieran McArdle & Aaron Forster, and had signed Connor Kelly earlier this week. Kelly had spent time with the San Diego Seals, New York Riptide and Panther City Lacrosse Club over the past three season.