Broncos Oil Kings Honka
Julius Honka (Photo by Darwin Knelsen)

Julius Honka won't be back with the Swift Current Broncos this season.

The highly skilled first round pick of the Dallas Stars was assigned to their AHL team in Cedar Park, Texas on Tuesday.

Dallas was unable to return Honka to the Broncos because of an International Ice Hockey Federation ruling that Honka was on loan from his Finnish team JYP to Swift Current and not property of the local WHL squad.

That left Dallas with no choice but to keep Honka, demote him to the American Hockey League or send him back to Europe for the season.

"It was totally out of our hands and Dallas' hands," said Broncos Coach/GM Mark Lamb. "They've always wanted to send him back here. I've had open discussions since Honka was drafted with (Dallas GM) Jim Nill and other personnel of the Dallas Stars and they signed him to send him back here."

"He was on a loan agreement to us from a team over in Europe and it had to go through these rulings and they ruled against us."

Junior players drafted out of the WHL are typically not allowed to play in the AHL and are sent back to their WHL team if they don't stick with their NHL team.

The circumstances of Honka's deal with his Finnish team and the Broncos appear to have created an exception to that rule.

"We did everything right," Lamb said. "He wouldn't have come to us if we didn't sign that loan agreement. We had him for a year and we thought we had him for the rest of his junior (career)."

"It's not a good precedent for our league at all... when you get a real good player who really developed a lot and turned himself into a first round draft pick I don't think it's good for our league that he played here one year and then gets to go to the American Hockey League."

Nill told the Dallas Morning News he is confident Honka will be OK in the AHL and had proved himself enough that they didn't look into sending him to Europe.

“It was a decision that we talked about, and he wanted to play in the AHL, so we feel good about this,” Nill said. “In seeing him in Traverse City (rookie tournament) and in training camp, he’s a very mature player who is more than ready for this. If we didn’t think he could handle it, we would have made a different decision, but he proved himself.”

WHL teams also receive development money from the NHL when players are drafted off their roster. This ruling could mean the Broncos would miss out on that compensation for Honka's selection.

"They have his rights so that's another thing we have to dig into," Lamb noted. "I guess the way it looks is that it was like he was playing over there even though he wasn't and he was playing over here."

The loss of Honka opens the door for the Broncos to potentially add another import player in a trade. Teams are only allowed to employ two imports and Swift Current now only has forward Andreas Schumacher on their roster.

"We're looking to better our team all the time," said Lamb. "We're always looking around. We have the opportunity to add another import player if we choose to. There's a couple teams that have three or they could be getting three. We'll just keep watching and if it's the right player we will take a run at it."

Honka scored 56 points in 62 games last season for the Broncos and helped Finland win a gold medal at the World Junior Hockey Championship. He was one of three Broncos picked in the 2014 NHL draft along with fellow defencemen Brett Lernout and Brycen Martin.

Swift Current still has a deep defensive group and added veteran Ayrton Nikkel from Saskatoon on Monday in part because Lamb was concerned about the potential ruling on Honka's future.

The WHL office declined to offer any comment on the Honka ruling at this time.

The Broncos continue life without their former star on Wednesday in Kamloops.