On-Time Arrival for Fifth-Round Kearns

The first minutes after defenseman prospect Finn Kearns was drafted by the Kraken Saturday were joyous, kinetic and surprising. The joy was Kearns rising from playing mostly high school hockey in Ontario this past season to be selected by Seattle as the 131^th pick in the 2026 NHL Draft. Kinetic, you bet. Kearns learned the news with box lacrosse teammates outside the rink where they train. A video included with this story makes the case for high-energy motion better than words can describe.

But the parking lot scene outside a Toronto-area rink (hockey in winter, box lacrosse in the summer) morphed to something even better and more wonderous. Kearns’ surprise and happy shock was fitting for the new Kraken prospect who schedules out his summer days practically to the minute. More about that shortly.

“It was pretty funny,” said Kearns, breaking into a wide grin on a handsome face. “Because I was with my lacrosse teammates. I said, ‘Boys, I gotta call my mom and dad.’ So I called them and they asked, ‘Where are you right now?’ I'm in the parking lot of the rink.’”

Turns out an hour before, Martin and Lesley Kearns realized their son’s range of possibly getting drafted was coming up.

“My parents were thinking, ‘We’ve got to be around him if it happens,’” said Kearns. “So they got in the car. Literally two minutes after I got picked, they pulled into the parking lot, jumped out of the car. It was crazy. Hugs. Group hug. It couldn't have happened in a better way.”

Kearns, who just turned 18 in June, is a 6-foot-3, 203-pound D-man who opted to play for St. Andrew’s College High this season rather than elevate full-time with the Ontario Hockey League Sudbury Wolves, the franchise for which fellow Kraken prospects David Goyette and Nathan Villeneuve played (the latter helping to show him the ropes at this week’s 2026 Kraken Development Camp sponsored by Starbucks). Kearns knew staying loyal to his high school squad might affect his draft potential.

“We were just getting off the floor from ‘box-cross’ [box lacrosse] practice,” said Kearns. “We were off to one of the boys' houses ...  the boys knew the draft was going on. I was stressing a little bit, pretty quiet. When it happened, we all blew up.”

Loyalty Rewarded, Captaincy Completed

Kearns’ choice to play for his high school, fulfilling his role as captain, tells you tons about the human being his parents were group hugging in a rink parking lot. It would be tempting to move full-time to play for Sudbury—and certainly teammates and coaches at St. Andrews would understand. Hockey dreams pushing to the NHL are revered in Canada.

For his part, Kearns weighed all of the pros and cons between sticking with his prep teammates or rising to OHL Sudbury. 

“You would think looking at the pros in Sudbury and the pros of playing for St. Andrew’s, it was a tough decision, but deep down it wasn't,” said Kearns. “I knew I would be staying true to my moral principles. St. Andrews put a lot into me. I made a commitment to them, I made a commitment to my coach, the school, and all of my teammates. Despite the amazing things in Sudbury and the OHL and the draft coming up, the most important thing to me was staying true to that commitment. There were countless amazing things at St Andrew’s, development- wise, academics and community-wise ... I'm super fortunate and super grateful the coaching staffs in Sudbury and St. Andrews worked together this year to allow me to play up and down between both. I got some games in front of NHL scouts in Sudbury, compete in the OHL, skate with the OHL team, play with them in playoffs.”

Fighting for His Teammates

Last February, during one of those OHL appearances, Kearns made his mark with his Sudbury teammates and the major junior hockey world. He got into a scrap with Brooks Rogowski, the first pick of last Saturday’s second round, who happens to be 6-foot-7 and 235 pounds. By all accounts, it was a draw or perhaps a slight advantage to either Kearns or Rogowski.

Kearns makes it clear that he is not the proverbial “goon” but someone who will take exception with teammates getting roughed up. Dawson said Kearns is “allergic to teammates getting pushed around.”

“I know I've got the gifts of size,” said Kearns, adding his ability to stand up to bullies started in the schoolyards of his youth. “Growing up I knew that fearlessness and violence would need to be a part of my game, so I really leaned into it. Of course, I love the other guys wearing the same jersey as me. If someone is taking a liberty on one of my teammates and if I'm out there and in the lineup, I do everything I can to make it so that things like that don't happen. If they do, someone [on the other team] answers the bell.”

Offseason Training Extraordinaire

Seattle fans aren’t likely to be surprised that boxing training is part Kearns’ summer routine. But the depth and breadth of this just-turned-18-year-old’s conditioning schedule swiveled the heads of Kraken scouts. Even head strength and conditioning coach Nate Brookreson told Dawson, “He’s got it going already” after being informed of Kearns’ meticulous schedule.

Let Kearns himself make it abundantly clear he has done his research and currently is executing on the optimal fitness plan every day: “Because my volume in the summers is higher, one of the highest, I need to add a bunch of other layers of active recovery, so that I can generate all that output.  My week consists of multiple skates, multiple workouts, multiple lacrosse practices, mixing in games. I incorporate boxing. With all that, I need to make sure I get my massages in, my acupuncture and fascial stretch therapy, my functional range treatment.”

Kearns has a weekly printout with allthe workout layers: strength training, lacrosse, speed training, different types of skates. He doesn’t stop there. Hours at home feature more actions to fuel the NHL dream.

“The main things to handle all of the volume start at home: “Nutrition, hydration and sleep,” said Kearns, not sounding anything close to the high school kid he was a month ago. “Those are the base details that preserve everything else I do.”

Defending the Deep Someday?

Kearns’ father played competitive hockey from 1991 to 2016 in various Canadian leagues. He coached Finn at AAA levels and emphasized that his son’s path to higher levels of the sport would hinge on being a defense-first defenseman.

“My primary role on the ice is to play defense,” said Kearns at Kraken Community Iceplex Monday. “My first job is to shut down and play defense, kill penalties. The secondary component to my game is that physicality. That’s just a bonus. It's valued and it's important. But when I'm out on the ice, I'm not out there just racking up PIMs [penalty minutes]. That happens, but I'm there to play defense. If my game invites conflict, I absolutely don't shy away from them.

“My dad knows me as a hockey player almost better than I know myself,” said Kearns. “Growing up, he was trying to mold me, not into something I wasn't supposed to be, but he was trying to mold me into what I was supposed to be. Whenever I would stray away from that, like trying to lead the rush [big smile], he would have to rein me back. Stay true to your identity as a player, he said.  ... This year I fully knew who I was as a hockey player.”