We knew 22-year-old defense prospect, Ryker Evans, was close to being ready for the NHL when we watched him in Seattle Kraken training camp before this season. In pre-season games, he consistently drove offensive opportunities and always looked so smooth on the ice. So, we weren’t surprised to see him recalled from AHL Coachella Valley last week, but the timing was interesting.
With Seattle in the midst of what would become an eight-game skid, coach Dave Hakstol decided it was time for a jolt to the blue line. In came Evans, and suddenly there was a new rotation happening between Brian Dumoulin and Justin Schultz, with the veterans taking turns being supplanted from the lineup by the rookie.
It got easier for Hakstol to decide which veteran should come out when Schultz became unavailable for a couple games after getting hit in the face with a puck in the 4-3 overtime loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning on Saturday. But now that Schultz is back, we are curious to see how this gets managed moving forward. After all, Evans has done nothing but impress since his arrival.
“I was pretty shocked [to get called up],” Evans said. “I mean, obviously, it’s something you dream of as a kid, and to get the opportunity is pretty cool. It’s kind of just been a whirlwind the last couple of days.”
Impressive start to Evans’ NHL career
Talking to Evans, who has the most level, calm demeanor you can imagine, you would never know he just made his NHL debut a few days ago. His play on the ice mirrors the way he carries himself off the ice, as he has yet to look frazzled in a game. In fact, on his very first NHL shift, he jumped up in the play and led an offensive rush with Tye Kartye, something you wouldn’t expect from a rookie NHLer dealing with the nerves of his debut.
The call-up seems to have come at the right time and has injected more offensive flair into Seattle’s lineup, which has struggled so mightily at that end of the ice. Evans said it was odd to parachute in when the team was in the deepest valley of its season to date.
“It’s tough, obviously, even when you’re losing,” Evans said. “I just wanted to come in and bring as much energy as I could, just bring some new life into the dressing room and kind of find a spark so that we can get back on the winning path here.”
He made some defensive mistakes in that first outing against New Jersey, but we’ve really liked the way he seems to be settling into Seattle’s end of the ice, and his offensive talents have been on full display. In his first game against the Devils, he made a move behind New Jersey’s net to hit the brakes, bump the puck behind himself, and send veteran forward Ondrej Palat flying past him.
Making a play like that in his first NHL game shows the confidence he has in his abilities to actually get players to bite on his moves without too much risk of turning the puck over.
Evans’ first impact on a scoresheet also came off an outstanding play low in the offensive zone in Tuesday’s 4-0 win over the Florida Panthers. Soon after a face-off, he saw a lane open down the half wall. Rather than dumping or rimming the puck around, he took the ice that was being given to him and skated the puck down below the goal line. He swung the puck around and centered a perfect pass for Pierre-Edouard Bellemare to score into a mostly open net and extend Seattle’s lead to 2-0.
“It was good that I was able to help a little bit,” Evans said, with his usual nonchalant tone. “It was great to get the win. We needed that one, and it’s huge for our confidence.”
His teammates are also seeing what we see, a good sign that Evans does have the ability to play consistently at the NHL level. After all, players tend to know when a guy has the “it” factor.
We first heard a player indicate they were impressed by Evans’ aptness when Joey Daccord joined the Sound Of Hockey Podcast during last season. Unprompted, Daccord gushed over how slick Evans was on the ice.
Devin Shore also had very positive commentary on the youngster after Wednesday’s optional practice.
”I’ve been playing with him in [Coachella Valley] too, and he’s been great there,” Shore said. “The name of the game right now is skating, and he obviously has that, and he plays with his head up. So if you got a guy in the back end with the skill that can skate, plays with this head up, good things are gonna happen. I’m really happy for him. He’s a great kid.”
Smooth skating is no accident
Evans was drafted as an over-ager, being passed up by all 31 other NHL teams in the draft prior to Seattle’s inaugural season. The next time around, when the Kraken selected him in the second round, No. 35 overall, we recall seeing draft pundits from far and wide criticizing the team for going “off the board” to select him. Fast forward, and the bold selection seems to be paying off.
The Calgary, Alberta, native said he wasn’t surprised he didn’t get picked in the 2020 draft, the first time he was eligible. “I don’t think I was fully at the point where I could have been drafted,” Evans said. “I just wasn’t developed enough, and I definitely didn’t have a good enough year, and I kind of knew that… Obviously, you hope you get picked. But it’s kind of earned. So I didn’t think I was I was there yet.”
One of the reasons Seattle’s scouting department liked Evans was because of his outstanding skating ability. It’s not just his speed, but his agility in being able to walk the blue line (as seen on the power play) and change directions on a dime that make his movements on the ice look effortless. This skating ability is no accident.
“My dad’s a power skating coach, so growing up, skating was always a No. 1 asset of mine,” Evans said. “Being smaller too, I had to figure out different ways to use my body and stuff like that. So, you just develop those skills growing up like that, and over time, you start to fine tune things.”
“Blade Boy”
In Daccord’s post-game media availability following the win over Florida on Tuesday, he referred to Evans as “Blade Boy” but declined to elaborate on why he calls him that.
Well, it turns out the moniker really does refer to blades, as in skate blades, because Evans is VERY particular about the steel he skates on.
He has 35 pairs of blades that he swaps out approximately every two games, and he keeps track of which pair he’s wearing at any given time. “Right now, I’m wearing set 28 out of 35,” Evans said.
He also is so specific about how he wants them sharpened, he only trusts one person in the world to sharpen his steel, his “guy” back in his hometown of Calgary. That’s not because he doesn’t like the job that gets done by any of the equipment managers on any of the teams he’s played for, he just doesn’t want to change his process.
“I send them back to Calgary to my guy,” Evans said. “It’s no shot at anyone. That’s just what I’ve always done.”
Worth noting, as Evans was telling Sound Of Hockey about the nickname, Chris Driedger walked into the dressing room and gave a big laugh, so clearly the players find Evans’ penchant for perfect steel a bit comical.
We say, if it works, keep doing it. So far for Ryker Evans, it seems to be working.
Darren Brown
Darren Brown is the Chief Content Officer at soundofhockey.com and the host of the Sound Of Hockey Podcast. He is a member of the PHWA and is also usually SOH’s Twitter intern (but please pretend you don’t know that). Follow him @DarrenFunBrown and @sound_hockey or email darren@soundofhockey.com.