Dillon Dube didn’t have a lot of time to dwell on his team’s exit from the Western Hockey League playoffs.
The Kelowna Rockets centre headed south to California on Tuesday to join the American Hockey League’s Stockton Thunder on an amateur tryout contract.
The Thunder are the AHL affiliate of the Calgary Flames, who took Dube in the second round, 56th overall in the 2016 NHL draft.
The 5-foot-11, 185-pound native of Cochrane, Alta., was coming off a solid WHL playoff effort with the Rockets, scoring seven goals and adding 14 assists in 16 games.
Dube joins the Heat in the midst of a playoff run as they play a decisive Game 5 tonight against former Rockets teammate Rourke Chartier and the San Jose Barracuda. The best-of-five series is knotted at 2-2.
Dube will be joining former Rockets head coach Ryan Huska, who was Kelowna’s bench boss from from 2007 to 2014. Dube played one playoff game under Huska during the 2014 WHL playoffs.
Huska has been coaching in the AHL since the 2014-15 season.
On Sunday, Dube and the Rockets were eliminated from the WHL playoffs in six games by the Seattle Thunderbirds.