It was hard to believe when NHL commissioner Gary Bettman announced in December of 2018 that the league was granting Seattle an NHL expansion franchise. It started to feel more like this was actually happening when the team hired Ron Francis as general manager the following summer. Then there was the name and logo reveal and the hiring of Dave Hakstol as head coach this spring. In July, we met the first players at the Expansion Draft. All those events helped build momentum, but it’s going to finally become real when Kraken players step onto the ice at the Kraken Community Iceplex to open the franchise’s first training camp on Thursday.
NHL hockey is officially in Seattle.
There are questions facing Francis and Hakstol, which will be answered over the next three weeks as the team prepares for its Oct. 12 season opener against the Vegas Golden Knights. Camp is going to move fast as the team will play its first preseason game Sunday in Spokane against the Vancouver Canucks.
Portions of camp will be open to the public and for the first time ever, hockey fans in Seattle will watch their NHL team skating.
What will those fans see? What should they be watching for?
Here are some storylines to consider at Kraken training camp.
How will the Kraken lines and pairings look?
We know who the Kraken players are, but we don’t know how the lines or defensive pairings will look.
While Hakstol isn’t going to give us an answer on day one of camp, we can start to get a sense of who looks good together. We think the top line will be Jaden Schwartz, Alex Wennberg, and Jordan Eberle, but nothing has been finalized, and lines are always subject to change even when the season gets under way.
Over the course of camp Hakstol will put players together in different configurations. The same goes for the preseason games and over time we should see lines and defensive pairings start to emerge.
It’s important not to jump to conclusions at practice though. Hakstol will want to see everybody and at one point you can expect a number of combinations on the ice for scrimmages and drills. Take it all with a grain of salt.
Who is making the Kraken roster out of training camp?
The Kraken have some tough decisions to make at forward and on the blue line.
Up front there are 26 forwards in camp with 13 defensemen and five goaltenders. The top of the lineup – top six forwards and top four defensemen – seem somewhat predictable but what about the rest? If the team keeps 15 or so forwards and seven or eight defensemen on the roster, decisions are on the way.
How players perform in camp and in preseason games will determine who stays, who gets sent to the AHL’s Charlotte Checkers, and who gets outright let go.
Keep a close eye on guys like Morgan Geekie, Alexander True, and Carsen Twarynski up front, and Cale Fleury, Will Borgen, and Dennis Cholowski on the back end, as those players will be battling to make a lasting impression.
Practice will play a huge role in determining how someone is performing but so will preseason games. There are roster spots available which should lead to great competition on the ice. With this first camp, it’s one of the more intriguing questions.
Kraken goalies set for training camp
There is little question on the goalie front. Philipp Grubauer will be the number one after signing a six-year, $35.4 million contract during free agency in July. The 29-year-old is coming off his best NHL season to date and was nominated for the Vezina Trophy after guiding the Colorado Avalanche to the Presidents’ Trophy.
Grubauer is locked in, and training camp is where he’ll add the fine points in his game to prepare for the regular season.
Backing up Grubauer – or the 1B goalie – is Chris Driedger. The Kraken selected him from the Florida Panthers and signed him during the Expansion Draft. Driedger, 27, inked a three-year deal with Seattle for $3.5 million a season and is secure in his spot on the roster.
What to watch in camp is how the depth goalies look.
Most notable is Joey Daccord whom the Kraken picked from the Ottawa Senators during the Expansion Draft. With a ton of upside, Daccord, 25, is most likely AHL bound but is expected to be knocking on the NHL door in no time.
Kraken goalie Joey Daccord will use training camp to solidify the third goalie spot for Seattle (Brian Liesse photo)
A raised intensity should be expected at training camp
The Kraken players have been on the ice participating in informal ‘Captain’s Skates’ for the past couple of weeks. Those skates were important in building some team camaraderie and to get their hockey legs back under them.
The action was akin to a pickup game at times, and while fun, there was no contact and intensity was lacking. That should change starting Thursday morning.
Jobs are on the line in camp and that means players are skating with a heightened purpose and drive. There will be contact. That intensity and physicality will carry into the preseason games.
Drills, drills, drills
Practice at camp will consist of a lot of drills along with some scrimmaging mixed in.
Hakstol will want to install his systems and ensure they become rote for the new team. Hockey coaches have systems for all occasions. There will be neutral zone systems, forecheck systems, break out systems, and more. What’s the system if you lose the faceoff in the offensive zone, or defensive zone, or neutral zone? These will all be worked on during camp.
The players should pick this up quickly.
Hockey is hockey and while Hakstol has an idea on how he wants to play, his players have seen it before. They’ve either played in similar systems in the past, or against them.
Who is going to play on special teams?
Special teams are key in the NHL and will play a role from game to game and over the course of the regular season. Over the next couple weeks, Hakstol will begin to learn who he’ll rely on to perform on the power play and penalty kill.
There are some obvious answers here.
We can expect players like Mark Giordano, Eberle, and Schwartz to be on one of the power play units. But who else? Will Vince Dunn be on the point for one of the two groups? Will Wennberg be on the penalty kill? Will Adam Larsson?
Special teams most likely won’t be worked on day one, and maybe not even in time for the first preseason game in Spokane, but by the end of camp we should know who we’ll expect to see on special teams once the season starts.
With the opening of training camp fully in sight, the Seattle Kraken made one more move to bolster the forward depth on their inaugural roster last week, signing 25-year-old Ryan Donato to a one-year, one-way contract worth $750K.
It’s an intriguing signing for a couple of reasons. First, Donato is coming off of a two-year contract that paid him $3.8 million in total, so with that in mind, he could end up being a bargain if he excels in a potentially elevated role with the expansion franchise. Second, the Kraken have signed a plethora of middle- to bottom-six forwards on one-year contracts this offseason, and the addition of Donato to that group creates more competition for some of the players that may have already been on the bubble to make the NHL roster.
Donato joins the Kraken after a season and a half each in Boston and Minnesota, then one season in San Jose. His best year came with the Wild in 2018-19 when he played much of the year on a line with Mikko Koivu and Ryan Hartman and posted 14 goals and nine assists in 62 games. In all, Donato has 35 career goals and 42 career assists in 180 regular-season games.
How Donato’s role gets defined when Seattle breaks camp will certainly be worth monitoring, as will the fates of players like Morgan Geekie, Alexander True, and Carsen Twarynski, to name a few.
A Boston kid lives out his dreams
Ryan Donato’s father, Ted, retired from a long NHL playing career in 2004 and quickly became the head coach for the men’s team at his alma matter, Harvard University. Ted Donato had been behind the Crimson bench for a decade when Ryan matriculated and joined the team as a freshman for the 2015-16 season.
College hockey in the Boston area is special. Four major programs inhabit the city, along with the Bruins at the NHL level, making the area a hotbed for the sport. Those four major college programs get together annually for the Beanpot, a nationally covered tournament for bragging rights that pits Harvard, Northeastern, Boston College, and Boston University against one another at a packed TD Garden. Youth hockey players across the region dream of one day playing in the tournament, regardless of where their collegiate allegiances lie. Donato was one of those kids.
Playing for his father, Donato helped the Crimson do something they hadn’t done in 24 years by winning the prized Beanpot championship in 2017. He calls the tournament something he “always wanted to win as a kid,” and he played a big role in pushing Harvard past a BU team that featured the likes of Jordan Greenway, Clayton Keller, Kieffer Bellows, and Jake Oettinger. Donato scored a highlight reel goal to help seal the Beanpot final (at about the 5:45 mark of the below video).
That Crimson team also advanced to the NCAA Frozen Four for Harvard’s first appearance since 1994, but lost 2-1 to Minnesota Duluth in the semifinals. In his third and final year at Harvard, Donato was a Hobey Baker Award finalist and the Ivy League Player of the Year after posting 43 points in just 29 games.
The impressive ride through the amateur ranks didn’t end at Harvard for Donato, though. With NHL players being held out of the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, he got the call to play for Team USA before vaulting right into the Bruins lineup later that season. “Participating in the Olympics was a complete— man, it was a blessing, it was unbelievable, it was a great experience,” Donato said. “And then, in the NHL, I got to play for my home team, which was nice and the team that I grew up watching in Boston.”
He was able to draw some similarities between playing in those Olympics and joining an expansion franchise in its first season. “We basically were all new guys playing on different teams that met up when we had two or three weeks, and then we were playing in the Olympics,” Donato recalled. “So I think that’s similar in the sense that you’ve got a group of guys that don’t really know each other. You might have played together in the past or played on different teams against each other, but now you’re all coming together. And, you know, you got to have that team chemistry right away, which really isn’t that easy to form that fast.”
How will Donato fit into the Kraken lineup?
If you’re scratching your head to figure out how all those players on one-year deals can slot into the Kraken lineup, you’re not alone. Donato himself isn’t sure where he fits yet, but he believes that if he gets an opportunity, he will contribute, as he has already shown he can do on his previous NHL teams.
“I think, personally, I just have the confidence. I know that any time that I’ve been put in a position to succeed, I’ve done well with it,” Donato said. “And it’s just a matter of keeping that position.”
It has been a pattern that Donato’s ice time has dwindled later in his tenures with his previous NHL teams. On whether or not he feels he should have gotten more time in higher roles in the past, he thinks he probably deserved more, but to him, that’s just the nature of a professional hockey player. “I think if you ask any player if they deserve more ice time, I think they would say yes,” Donato said. “Every guy in every organization on every team thinks that they deserve more, it’s just a matter of proving it.”
Donato knows that he does still need to prove to Seattle head coach Dave Hakstol and his staff that he can do the little things on the ice that help the team win. “When I do those things, the coach is more willing to give me those opportunities that I succeed with. So I think it kind of goes both ways. You know, you’ve got to earn those responsibilities, but whenever I’m given those responsibilities, I usually do pretty well.”
The challenge for Donato is that for much of his NHL career to this point, he has played bottom-six roles, where the focus is more on stopping the opposition from scoring than it is about producing offensively. But he’s a shoot-first player that was clearly bred to put up points, as demonstrated by his eye-popping numbers at Harvard and by his performance at the PyeongChang Olympics, where he tied for the tournament lead in goals.
The lasting question for him as an NHL player is whether he can be successful enough playing on lower lines to get extended opportunities on top lines. Still, as far as Donato is concerned, wherever he ends up in Seattle’s lineup, he believes he can contribute. “I’m not too sure where exactly I’m going to slot in, but for me, I know I’m confident playing in any position in any part of the lineup.”
“Everything has been top notch”
After a summer of uncertainty about where he would play this season, Donato is ready to get started with the Kraken and has so far been impressed with what he’s seen from the fledgling organization. “Everything has been top notch. I mean from getting to know the guys and communication between players and coaches and staff and the equipment guys, the medical staff, trainers, the food, just everything has been top notch.”
Donato also raved about the new Kraken Community Iceplex, where the team has been holding informal practices in the lead-up to training camp. “The new facility, obviously, is unbelievable. I mean, it’s kind of an understatement to say that, but it really is unbelievable. They’re really trying to set us up for success here.”
Will Donato himself be set up for success? If he gets opportunities to show that he can produce, Seattle could end up getting great value out of Donato. But Donato also needs to seize those opportunities to rise above the bottom-six logjam that now exists on the Kraken roster.
Darren Brown is the Chief Content Officer at Sound Of Hockey and the host, producer, and editor of the Sound Of Hockey Podcast. He is an inconsistent beer league goalie who believes that five players have to make a mistake before the puck gets to him. Follow him on Twitter @DarrenFunBrown or email darren@soundofhockey.com.
Training camp is just a week away, and it’s time to put a bow on the offseason. This feels like a good time to look back and consider some of Seattle’s biggest moves in preparation for its inaugural campaign. Here’s our best attempt to assign superlatives to all the Kraken’s roster-building moves this summer.
Most important free agent signing: Jaden Schwartz
Goaltender Philipp Grubaer is another option here, but due to the Kraken’s scarcity of options up front, Schwartz is my pick.
Schwartz, who signed a five-year $27.5 million contract with Seattle in the offseason, is defensively sound on the wing, but isn’t as consistent offensively as some would hope. The 29-year-old’s best years in the league, 2014-15 and 2017-18, came with shooting percentages above 15 percent, but those seasons were followed with a lack of production.
Schwartz was an integral member of St. Louis’ Stanley Cup-winning squad in 2018-19, notching 20 points in 26 games during the playoffs. The Kraken will likely need that version of Schwartz to show up in 2020-21 to produce enough offense in their inaugural season.
Most important Expansion Draft pick: Yanni Gourde
Impactful centers aren’t easy to find, but the Kraken selected one from Tampa Bay that can be the franchise’s cornerstone in year one and beyond.
Gourde, 29, is a two-way center that forechecks like hell, kills penalties, and can chip in offensively. His presence in the lineup will be instrumental in a successful first season.
Unfortunately for Seattle, Gourde will miss the start of the season, after undergoing offseason shoulder surgery. The Kraken’s ability to weather his absence could make the difference between a winning season and a losing one.
Most intriguing Expansion Draft pick: Chris Driedger
Driedger’s case is more intriguing due to his fit on the roster than his actual play.
The 27-year-old netminder was fantastic for Florida in a split role with Sergei Bobrovsky last season and figured to be Seattle’s top goalie after his selection in the Expansion Draft. That changed when the Kraken inked Grubauer to a six-year $35.4 million contract in the offseason.
Kraken general manager Ron Francis said plans changed when they realized Grubauer was an option in free agency, but how Driedger is handled will be fascinating. Will he be in a true tandem split with Grubauer or will be used more sparingly? Can he produce similarly to how he did in Florida? Is he frustrated with being second fiddle to start another season?
It will be an interesting situation to monitor.
Most intriguing Free Agent signing: Ryan Donato
Donato, a recent Kraken signing, has had a turbulent career since breaking out with the Bruins in 2017-18 with nine points in 12 games. But since then, Donato has struggled with inconsistency.
At just 25-years-old, Donato is an interesting low-risk, high-reward bottom-six forward that can chip in offensively.
Most intriguing player with local ties: Morgan Geekie
Alexander True is another good option here, but Morgan Geekie, a former star with the Tri-City Americans, will be an interesting player to watch.
The Kraken’s choice from Carolina never developed more than just a bit role with the Hurricanes, but the 23-year-old forward was enticing enough for his former GM Francis to take him over Jake Bean — another former Americans star, who many believed would be Seattle’s pick.
Best breakout candidate: Vince Dunn
Jared McCann is a trendy choice for this distinction, but Dunn is my pick here.
Regarded as an analytics darling with the Blues who was never trusted with playing top-tier minutes, Dunn, 24, should see an increased role with the Kraken. The big question is: Can that efficiency carry over when he’s entrusted with more minutes? That’s the million-dollar question on what’s already shaping up to be a sturdy defensive unit in Seattle.
With the NHL season less than a month away, we thought we should revisit the Seattle Kraken schedule to see how it stacks up with the rest of the league across a few different metrics. Specifically, we are going to look at total travel distance over the season, the number of road trips, and the number of back-to-back games the Kraken will face this year compared to their NHL counterparts.
Travel distance
Being that Seattle is in the corner of the United States, there is room for concern that the Kraken will be traveling quite a bit in a typical NHL Season.
The Seattle Kraken will travel the eighth-most miles in the NHL this season with 49,566.
Another way to look at this is to consider how the Seattle Kraken travel compares to that of their divisional rivals and how the other divisions stack up against one another.
It is interesting to see the Pacific Division has the tightest cluster of travel distances by team. This bodes well for the Kraken, as they will be on a relatively level playing field with their closest rivals in this respect.
Also, this is unrelated, but it is interesting to see Washington as such an outlier in the Metropolitan Division.
Number of road trips
Distance is one aspect of the travel schedule, but we should also look at the quantity of road trips a team might have on the schedule.
In the number of road trips category, Seattle has the second-fewest trips behind only the Vancouver Canucks. This should be a good thing for Seattle Kraken players, although it will mean a few long stretches away from home, including to start the season.
Back-to-back games
Finally, we need to consider back-to-back games, as this ends up being a factor for every NHL team.
Playing on consecutive nights can be tough on teams in general, but the biggest impact is on goaltending. It is quite rare for the same goalie to play both games of a back-to-back scenario, so it is important for a team to have a strong goalie tandem should they have a lot of back-to-back games.
In Seattle’s case, they have 15 back-to-back game scenarios. It is a good thing the Kraken have one of the best goalie tandems in the league in Philipp Grubauer and Chris Driedger. Additionally the third goalie, Joey Daccord, has proven he can play in the NHL should there be a an injury to Grubauer or Driedger.
Bonus content
Because I had access to the data, I thought I would share this distribution of road trips and home games throughout the season.
Down the stretch, the road trips and homestands are shorter than those of the first half of the season. This should have a positive impact on the team’s performance on the ice as they hopefully make a push for the playoffs.
Success in the regular season has a lot of variables and constraints beyond the challenges of the schedule, but we will continue to monitor the team performance based on some of these scenarios.
Hope you enjoyed this different perspective of the 2021-22 Seattle Kraken schedule.
When you think of Green Bay you don’t immediately think of hockey. Rather, images of the Packers, football, and the frozen tundra come to mind. But it’s in Green Bay that Seattle Kraken forward Mason Appleton found hockey.
“I hear Green Bay, I think football too,” Appleton said of his hometown.
Appleton’s father played the game, which exposed him and hooked him to hockey at three years old. While not the most popular sport in Green Bay, Appleton was able to find fellow players growing up and backyard rinks to hone skills on.
Those skills have brought him to Seattle after the Kraken selected Appleton from the Winnipeg Jets at the NHL Expansion Draft.
The forward, who’s played both center and on the wing, has spent three seasons in the NHL and at age 25 is coming off of his best year to date. That made his exposure by Winnipeg somewhat of an eyebrow raiser.
“It was kind of a ‘it is what it is’ type of feeling,” Appleton said. “The Jets had to make their decisions and from there I couldn’t control anything. The cards fell where they fell so I’m super excited to be heading to Seattle.”
Being exposed is a reminder that hockey is a business.
Teams make decisions based on what they feel will maximize their potential to win and sometimes those choices are hard. While Appleton understands it’s a business, he looks at it as something that can motivate him to have a big year with the Kraken.
“You’re not a competitor if you don’t take it personal a little bit.” Appleton said. “I shrug it off and say it is what it is more times than not, but deep down it definitely puts a chip on your shoulder, and you do take it a little personal. That’s how I’ve always been and that’s how I always respond to situations like that.”
Mason Appleton’s journey to the NHL
Always with a goal of playing college hockey in the United States, Appleton signed with the Tri-City Storm of the USHL to play junior. After a successful season in 2014-2015 where he recorded 40 points in 54 games the Jets selected him in the sixth round of the 2015 NHL Entry Draft.
He then moved on to play at Michigan State for two seasons. His second season was his best, scoring 12 goals and 31 points over the course of 35 games. That would result in signing a contract with the Jets and spending two seasons in the AHL with the Manitoba Moose.
Appleton turned in a productive rookie year for Manitoba in 2017-2018 with 66 points in 76 games. He started off the following year strong and would eventually be called up to the Jets midway through the season. Getting into the NHL is not always a sure thing for any draft pick, much less a sixth-round pick.
Being drafted that low was another chip, another motivation for Appleton.
“Definitely a chip on your shoulder, it’s kind of how I’ve been my whole career,” he said. “I’ve been passed over different times at different levels and things like that. I learned to have that motivate me and have that drive me. Being a sixth rounder, you look at the guys ahead of you, look at guys in the league and where they were picked.
“Not many sixth rounders end up establishing themselves in the NHL so I just kind of take it a day at a time, just be the best I can be, get better and not compare myself to everyone else, but just be the best version of myself.”
Appleton has established himself in the NHL and is coming off a year where he reached career highs in goals with 12, assists with 13, and points with 25.
In fact, over his career he has improved every season at every level. He says that’s thanks to a drive and desire to work over the offseason. While some have referred to last year as a ‘breakout’ season, Appleton feels he has more potential.
“Last year was a good year,” Appleton said. “I definitely carved out a bit more of a role and found myself getting more opportunity. And going forward, obviously going to try to continue to improve and I’m still young, only 25 years old, so I think there’s still a lot more.”
How will Appleton fit in with the Kraken?
The increased role in Winnipeg earned him just over 14 minutes per game. He spent very little time – less than a minute per game – on the power play despite possessing a good shot.
Appleton shot 13 percent last year, which was his career high but still pretty much in line with his NHL career mark of 11.9. That career mark is the exact same percentage that he achieved in the AHL, showing him to be a consistent shooter.
He’ll have a chance at earning more ice time with the Kraken as coach Dave Hakstol tries to figure out who his top nine forwards will be. If Appleton can push closer to the 20-minute mark each game, he may be able to improve on his numbers from Winnipeg.
Seattle has some questions when it comes to who will play center for the Kraken, and Appleton has played in the middle and at right wing. Will he be in the mix for a center role?
“I probably prefer the wing,” he said. “I think I’m just a little bit more comfortable there, a little bit stronger there, but it’s one of those things. It’s pretty cliché, but wherever you’re needed that’s where you’re gonna play. However that shakes out I’m super happy to play either.”
The Kraken forwards on the roster all are similar in that they play a strong two-way game.
There isn’t a guy who would be classified as a pure scorer. That should allow them to play a strong, hard game, with what the team hopes will be enough scoring. Appleton fits right in.
Along with a good shot, Appleton can skate and has top-end speed to burn. He is listed at six-foot-two and 193 pounds and has put up offensive numbers over his hockey life, but he doesn’t want to pigeonhole himself as an offensive player.
“Depends on the team and on the level,” he said about his game. “In the minors I was definitely more of an offensive player, but in the NHL I kind of pride myself in that two-way role. I’ve been relied upon at both ends of the ice. Wherever I’m needed to fill in that void, whatever is asked to me, that’s the role I’m going to play.”
Looking ahead to the Kraken
Appleton says he’s ready for the experience in Seattle. He has never been to the city but has found a place to live and is planning on making the move early in September. He has not played with any of the current Kraken but wants to get in town early enough to get to know his new teammates away from the rink.
He says it’s important to form relationships off the ice to create chemistry on it. “I think that definitely feeds into it but I think it will come quicker than we think. You’re in the NHL so it’s all talented guys and guys can read and learn off each other so I think that should come together.”
In July, Appleton found out Seattle had selected him when Winnipeg Jets general manager Kevin Cheveldayoff called to inform him. After a quick call from Seattle’s Ron Francis and Hakstol in the afternoon, he turned on the television with his parents to watch the broadcast of the Expansion Draft.
The scene at Gas Works Park was impressive.
“It’s going to be an unbelievable spot to play, and you could just tell how passionate the fans are in the community already,” he said. “I’m super excited because you’ve seen the way they rally around sports teams, it’s non-stop, it’s top of the line so yeah, very excited to get out there.”
After a year of having their play watched, scrutinized, and nit-picked, seven prospects heard the Seattle Kraken call their names during July’s NHL Draft. It’s a dream come true for any young hockey player, and while a big sigh of relief was in order, the scrutiny is far from over.
Those seven players are in for more viewings by Seattle scouts and Kraken player development personnel this year and beyond, as the club decides if they want to sign the new prospects. So, the scouting continues.
According to Kraken director of amateur scouting Robert Kron, his scouts, along with Troy Bodie, director of hockey and business, Palm Springs, will be checking in on the Seattle prospects to see how development is progressing.
“We’re gonna be watching them for sure,” Kron says.
Kron adds that the viewing is under way as fifth-round pick Ville Ottavainen has been on the ice. The defenseman is playing this coming season for JyP in the Finnish Liiga which is in its preseason. Ottavainen has played, and the Kraken were there to watch.
The Kraken drafted these players so what are they looking for this year?
“You know, you kind of have a general idea of their strengths and weaknesses so that’s what you communicate to them,” Kron says. “As soon as you draft them, you’re allowed to talk to them. You kind of do the math, this is what you’re doing well, this is a worry and what you’re wanting them to improve. It’s constant communication throughout the year, it starts from day one, even if we’re not signing them right away.”
They’ll meet with the players and their coaches to check in. They don’t, however, tell the player’s current team how he should be deployed. NHL teams are hands off when it comes to playing time and roles, but Kron says that some teams, especially in the CHL, will let them work with players on the ice if they wish.
“The CHL teams are very welcoming about that. It’s sort of hard in Europe,” Kron says. “I think it’s important to keep in touch with the guys every time you’re in the rink and one of your guys is playing. Just after the game to say, ‘Hey, we’re here.’ The conversation goes a long way for them and for us.”
Some of the prospects will be in training camp with the Kraken. Kron says that the European prospects won’t be there, but a couple of the other players should be in attendance. After training camp they’ll be returned to their amateur teams for the season.
With the prospects not in Seattle it makes continuing to track their progress a vital task.
Where will the Seattle Kraken prospects play this season?
Matty Beniers
Beniers was Seattle’s first-round pick, taken at No. 2 overall, and it was announced last week that he would return to the University of Michigan for his sophomore season.
This wasn’t a shock and is no reason for alarm.
While the six-foot-two center appears to have skill enough to play in the NHL, returning to college after a COVID-affected season may be the appropriate avenue. Beniers will again be able to play in the World Junior Championship for the United States and will join a Michigan roster that features four of July’s top-five picks in the NHL Draft.
He joins first overall pick Owen Power (Buffalo), fourth overall pick Luke Hughes (New Jersey), and fifth pick Kent Johnson (Columbus) to an already talented Michigan roster. The Wolverines should be in the mix come the NCAA Tournament, and playing high stakes hockey never hurts an NHL prospect.
Michigan hockey can be found on the Big 10 Network with some regularity this season.
Ryker Evans
Seattle raised some eyebrows when it picked Evans early in the second round with pick No. 35. The Regina Pats defenseman will play in the WHL this season after leading the league’s blueliners last year with 25 assists.
Evans will be an over-ager in Regina – WHL rules allow for three 20-year-olds on the roster – and will play with budding superstar Connor Bedard again this season.
Bedard was the first player ever given an exception to play in the WHL at 15. He burst on the scene in 2021 and led the league in scoring prior to leaving to play for Canada at the U18 World Championship. Playing with a superstar helped Evans when it came to his numbers. In 15 games, nine of Evans’ assists involved plays that Bedard also figured in the scouting.
NHL scouts look beyond the numbers, though, and Kron says that Evans’ stock grew from watching him play with a superstar.
“It’s not always easy to play with the superstar players,” Kron adds. “You need to be on a level of seeing the things that they do too. These players, even at a young age, they see the game a little bit differently. Let’s say for example Ryker reads off Bedard and they have a chemistry. That tells you something, you know, this kid can play with high-end talent and he is himself actually very skilled and very advanced.”
Evans’ skill was proven when he continued his scoring, adding 16 assists over the final nine games of the season, after Bedard left.
To watch Evans and the Pats this season you can stream games on CHLtv.
Ryan Winterton
In the third round the Kraken took Hamilton Bulldogs center Ryan Winterton. His only action last year came in seven games at the U18 World Championship after the OHL canceled its season. Despite the small sample size last season, Kron says that they got a good look at him at the U18’s and are comfortable scheduling the normal amount of post-draft viewings this season.
Winterton was known to the Kraken scouts because they were able to see him during his rookie year in Hamilton, where he scored 23 points in 53 games as a 16-year-old.
He’ll be back with the Bulldogs this season.
“We talked to Hamilton, and we know that he’s gonna play big minutes, so we’re not worried about that,” Kron says. “He needs to improve a lot of things, as they all do. They’re young kids and there’s a lot of work to be done. But with him, like he’s six-foot-two, 180 pounds, kind of a wiry kid so he’ll have to put a little bit of meat on the bone.”
Like Evans, Winterton’s Hamilton Bulldogs games are streamed on CHLtv.
Hamilton Bulldogs center Ryan Winterton was the Seattle Kraken third round pick in the 2021 NHL Draft (Photo courtesy Hamilton Bulldogs)
Ville Ottavainen
Ottavainen was pick No. 67 for the Kraken, selected in the fourth round. He’ll stay in Finland this coming season and play in Liiga. The big, six-foot-five defenseman played for JyP last year and recorded three points in 22 games.
Jacob Melanson
Pick 131 brought the Kraken Melanson from Acadie-Bathurst of the QMJHL in the fifth round. Melanson will return to the Titan after a productive 19 points in 18 games last year. You can catch his games on CHLtv as well.
Semyon Vyazovoy
Seattle went with the Russian goalie in the sixth round of the draft, and he is expected to return to the junior MHL this coming season. Kron says that Vyazovoy has an outside chance of cracking the KHL as a third goalie but Seattle wants him to get playing time, which might be more plentiful in the MHL.
Justin Janicke
Janicke was nabbed by the Kraken in the seventh round after he played last season in the USHL for the United States National Team Development Program. He’s committed to play NCAA hockey with Notre Dame and will take the ice as a freshman this fall.
Title photo courtesy of Regina Pats/Keith Hirshmiller Photography
