Kraken Notebook – Roster race heating up; Catton, Rehkopf, Villeneuve returned to junior

The battle for the final few roster spots is heating up in Seattle Kraken training camp. As I’ve mentioned a few times, Seattle already has a full lineup of players presumably etched into the Opening Night roster, and the team would be right up against the salary cap with a full complement of healthy skaters.

The cap crunch doesn’t account for any extra players, so we still don’t exactly know how the club would fit them in. But NHL teams always carry extras to create ongoing competition and to fill in for last-second injuries or illnesses. If Seattle can find a way to fit an extra player or two (or three?) under the cap, who will make it out of Kraken training camp with the big club?

Well, it depends on how many players the Kraken want to keep around. The maximum regular-season active roster size is 23 players, which means 18 skaters and two goalies in the lineup and up to three healthy scratches. For teams that keep the max 23, they typically go with two extra forwards and one spare defenseman.

Josh Mahura, Cale Fleury, and Gustav Olofsson are the most obvious options to remain with the otherwise set-in-stone defense corps. My gut says Mahura, the offseason free agent signee, would be the guy with the inside track. He did have a glaring mishap in the game Sunday against Calgary that ended up in Seattle’s net, though, so he has more to prove. We’ll continue to keep an eye out for signs of which depth defenseman seems to be rising to the top of the heap.

As for the forwards, that contest is quite intriguing. I’ve always thought Ryan Winterton had a good chance of sticking with the Kraken, and I still do. But John Hayden and Ben Meyers are also making strong claims for remaining in the NHL, and as the days go by, I’m growing more confident that the final decisions will come down to these three players.

John Hayden shows off physical element

Hayden’s time with the Kraken organization has been interesting. Since signing with the team prior to the 2022-23 season, he seems to be riding the NHL bubble but still has not been able to re-solidify himself as a full-time NHLer despite his 249 games of NHL experience.

I thought coming into last season’s camp that a roster spot was his to lose, but he got banged up and didn’t put his best foot forward. I asked Hayden about this today, and he said, “It’s a good point. I think that was pulling me back maybe a little bit, so it’s nice coming in this year feeling fresh and healthy.”

In this camp, he’s happy with what he’s shown to this point.

“I’ve felt pretty good so far, just trying to grow a little bit every year,” Hayden said. “I’ve definitely learned a lot from the staff over the last couple of years. That’s the thing about hockey is you can never perfect it, so there’s always something to work on and a North Star to chase, but so far, I’ve thought the compete’s been solid. But I think I have more to give as well.”

The 6-foot-3, 223-pound forward certainly took advantage of his opportunity in Tuesday’s preseason game at Vancouver, in which he showed the kind of teammate he’s willing to be by not thinking twice about jumping in to protect Logan Morrison and Brandon Montour on separate occasions.

“I’m familiar with John’s game and what he brings to the table from having him [in Coachella Valley] the last two years,” head coach Dan Bylsma said. “He’s been up in Seattle for a handful of games the past couple of years. But we even talked with John last year in the [AHL] playoffs, ‘Just let your game speak for itself.’ In the playoffs last year, he was a big, dominant power forward, physical, and added some scoring in the playoffs.”

Bylsma added that Hayden is showing a different side to his game in camp compared with what he demonstrated in the Calder Cup Playoffs. This version of Hayden seems to be working quite well in terms of making sure his presence is known.

“I just compete,” Hayden said. “I try and be a Swiss Army knife, whatever role I’m put in, and bring energy.”

Ben Meyers is also in the mix

I also thought it was interesting that Meyers was the one tagged to slot in for Chandler Stephenson between Jaden Schwartz and Andre Burakovsky Tuesday. Meyers did not disappoint, scoring Seattle’s lone goal and nearly tying the game with six minutes left.

“Ben’s a little bit different [than Hayden],” Bylsma said. “I talked about Ben [Tuesday]… I’ve played against him three times [in Coachella Valley], and they were fearful times. We were worried about Ben coming into… the Colorado lineup in the playoffs, because of his speed, because of his playmaking ability… It’s what he brought last night. He got an opportunity to do it with Schwartzy and Burky up on that top line, and he did an outstanding job with it. You see his speed on the goal, and he finishes it off there, and he’s got to keep it going.”

With Hayden and Meyers making strong (but very different) cases for belonging in the NHL, now Winterton will look for a chance to leave a lasting impression. Worth noting, with Burakovsky taking a maintenance day Wednesday, Winterton joined the forward line with Schwartz and Meyers.

The plot thickens.

Catton, Rehkopf, and Villeneuve returned to junior teams

As we were assembled and waiting for Bylsma to appear at the podium after practice Wednesday, we noticed No. 8 overall draft pick Berkly Catton walking through the Kraken dressing room carrying his fully packed Spokane Chiefs equipment bag and a couple of his sticks. This raised our antenna that perhaps the second round of cuts from training camp could be happening in that very moment.

Lo and behold, when Bylsma did appear, he confirmed that Catton, along with Nathan Villeneuve and Carson Rehkopf, would be returning to their respective junior clubs. The coach sounded pleased with what he saw from the youngsters during their time in Seattle.

“Awesome, awesome,” Bylsma said when asked specifically about Catton. “I think [there was] a lot of anticipation as to what kind of player he is and what he can do on the ice. I thought he showed great with this training camp, a high degree of skill and compete, great hockey sense, offensive mind for the game, and that showed up… And so I think the 10 days, 12 days went really well for him.”

As for the others, Bylsma sees an opportunity for them to return to the CHL and act as leaders on their teams.

“I think [getting] the opportunity here in camp to do it with our guys, see the pace, the speed, see how our guys work… Now it’s their job to take that to be leaders with their own careers,” Bylsma said. “When they’re going back to their junior teams, take leadership of where they’re at and what they are as a player.”

One thing we noticed about Catton is how he seemed to improve before our eyes during rookie camp and the main Kraken training camp. Heck, even in the lone preseason game he played against the Calgary Flames, he had a mistake early that led (in part) to Calgary’s first goal, but as that game went on, he looked more and more confident and started to show why he was a top pick in the draft. We saw flashes of his speed and offensive prowess, which led to a couple of scoring chances in the game, and even in practices, his motor seemed to be operating a faster rate at the end of his stint compared to the beginning of camp.

Villeneuve, meanwhile, did a lot to boost his brand during his time in Kraken training camp. He scored in that same Flames game and ruffled a lot of feathers along the way, earning his unexpectedly extended stay in Seattle. We will certainly be keeping tabs on him this season.

The cuts mean that Eduard Sale is the only player left who could potentially return to junior. The wrinkle with him is that—while other major junior players his age can only play in the NHL or CHL—Sale is an import, which makes him eligible to play in the AHL this season. Could the Kraken place him in Coachella Valley to really get their developmental hooks into him?