The Winkler Flyers had seven picks in the 2017 Manitoba Junior Hockey League (MJHL) draft and selected four forwards and three defence.

All players selected in this year's draft have 2002 birth years.

Winkler held the 10th overall selection in the six round draft held in Winnipeg Sunday morning. With this pick the Flyers chose Calder Anderson, who hails from Brandon and played with the Brandon Wheat Kings Bantam "AAA" team last year.

"We really like Calder (Anderson). He's a highly skilled kid. He works hard and has a high hockey IQ," said Flyers head coach Ken Pearson. "Obviously he's someone we are familiar with and when you get to the first round you want to make sure that the guy is going to commit to your program and we have that with Calder."

The other six picks for the Flyers are as follows;

- Rd. 2, 21st - Hayden Forrest - D - Winnipeg - Winnipeg Monarchs B1AAA
- Rd. 3, 30th - Kyle Lamoureux - D - Winnipeg - Winnipeg Warriors B1AAA
- Rd. 3, 32nd - Mitch Thiessen - F - Brandon - Brandon Wheat Kings B1AAA
- Rd. 5, 54th - Anton Uruski - D - Winnipeg - Winnipeg Monarchs B1AAA
- Rd. 6, 57th (from Dauphin) - Graeme Patrick - F - Winnipeg - Winnipeg Sharks B1AAA
- Rd. 6, 65th - Nathanael Hinds - F - Winnipeg - Winnipeg Warriors B1AA

"Our focus heading in was strengthening our back end. Obviously the focus was on defence for the most part," said Pearson. "I think we came away with some very good prospects and some guys that we are looking forward to developing into some quality MJHL defencemen. Just overall I think the whole draft was really good. We were able to add some skill and size, but the focus was on strengthening our back end.

Also as part of the draft the Flyers are allowed to auto protect a pair of local players and this year Winkler protected Rylan Thomas and Liam Friesen

"We had some tough decisions there and we had a great deal of input from the two Bantam coaches on which guys we should select. We took a forward and a defencemen, said Pearson. "The forward was at our spring camp and did well and we are looking defencemen coming to our camp in the fall."

Meanwhile, this MJHL draft featured a number of Pembina Valley players being drafted to a variety of different teams.

- Rd. 3, 25th (Swan Valley) - Riley Goertzen - C - Homewood - Pembina Valley Hawks B1AAA
- Rd. 3, 27th (Virden) - Brock Moroz - G - La Salle - Pembina Valley Hawks B1AAA
- Rd. 3, 28th (Winnipeg Blues) - Andrew Vasko - F - La Salle - Pembina Valley Hawks B1AAA
- Rd. 3, 29th (Portage) - Jacob Carels - D - Bruxelles - Pembina Valley Hawks B1AAA
- Rd. 4, 34th (Waywayseecappo) - Andrew Boucher - F - Morden - Pembina Valley Hawks B1AAA
- Rd. 6, 58th (Swan Valley) - Justin Keck - F - Morris - Pembina Valley Hawks B1AAA