From Pumping Iron To Pumping Goals

Top prospect Jake O’Brien pumping iron at the Kraken training facility this week is something the team hopes can soon become a permanent sight.

Having only just celebrated his 19^th birthday in June despite having already conquering most of what major junior hockey had to offer, the centerman and No. 8 overall Kraken draft pick from 2025 will turn professional with somebody this coming season. And whether that pro debut is with the Kraken or their AHL affiliate in Coachella Valley will have plenty to do with the weight O’Brien can not only hoist in the gym, but also put on his still-growing 6-foot-2, 174-pound frame.

“It’s the strength factor for me,” O’Brien said. “I’ll also do cardio in all my workouts because that’s obviously a big thing, but I need to gain weight – so, it’s been a lot of strength work.”

That strength factor could very well be the difference in how quickly O’Brien puts on a Kraken uniform beyond just the training sessions undertaken here since early last week. He’ll head back home to the Toronto later this week knowing the next time he’s here will be for Kraken training camp a month from now when the real test begins to see how quickly his elite junior hockey skills translate to the pro game.

Others will be watching intently as well. One reason The Athletic recently put O’Brien at No. 2 on the team’s top prospects list in their annual rankings – trailing only Berkly Catton, drafted a year ahead of him – is the way his size and skilled, two-way game is expected to transition quickly to the pro level.

The mental part of that pro transition already began last season, when O’Brien studied more video on his own and did extra work on faceoffs and his initial speed bursts used to pull away from opposing defenders. He’s had a pro mindset instilled in him by his family as well; his mother, Amy Turek, a former professional women’s player and his dad, Dan O’Brien, an ex-NCAA forward at Clarkson University who had a brief ECHL career.

O’Brien doesn’t smile much and appears inwardly contemplative, letting others around him do most of the talking. He admits he can be his own worst hockey critic, though he’s also smart enough to let his self-criticisms go before they linger.

“I put a lot of pressure on myself, which is good and bad at times,” he said. “But I also have a lot of belief in myself. And a lot of confidence. So, I don’t get too high or too low.”

That mindset helped O’Brien become a finalist for the Ontario Hockey League’s most outstanding player award this past season, when he put up 93 points in 53 games for the Brantford Bulldogs, then added 23 more points in 15 playoff contests. His regular season points-per-game total of 1.75 was up significantly from his draft year tally of 1.48 despite his extra focus on bettering himself away from the puck so his all-around game would be ready for pro rigors.

“He wants work on faceoffs because he knows that’s important,” Kraken player development consultant Zac Dalpe said earlier this off-season. “He wants to watch video on playing with pace and getting through the neutral zone as a transporter and doing it to get defensemen to back off the line. He’s starting to really understand that side of the game. Whereas maybe a kid like that is usually just wondering how to get open on the power play.”

No one in the Kraken organization saw more of O’Brien last season than Dalpe, who lives the next town over from Brantford and took in as many games as he could. Dalpe was impressed by how O’Brien received the Kraken messaging about rounding out his game for the pros and didn’t allow it to detract from the offensive prowess the team would love to soon see at the NHL level.

“His hockey IQ is so high that you don’t want to take the stick out of his hands,” Dalpe added. “You just want to add more clubs to his bag, so to speak. It’s been a growth, for sure, but over the last month and a half, two months, it’s really taken off.”

O’Brien, a former OHL rookie of the year, could have stuck around for a fourth major junior season. But with the AHL having created an exemption this summer allowing one 19-year-old prospect per team to play within its ranks rather than returning to junior hockey if they don’t stick in the NHL right away – previous eligibility for Canadian junior players was age 20 and older -- the Kraken want O’Brien playing pro.

That exemption wasn’t in place last year when the Kraken kept top prospect Catton on their roster all season at age 19 or otherwise would have needed to send him back to junior hockey. There’s a chance O’Brien could make the Kraken out of training camp the way Catton did, but he’ll certainly need to show he can withstand the more physical play and continue to excel given there’s now a fallback AHL option for learning the pro game.

That’s why O’Brien is now building the muscle that can help his skillset make the jump.

“It’s just to get bigger in the corners,” he said. “I’ll be going against grown men this year. So, not getting pushed off of pucks and not being able to get pinned against the wall will be big for me.”

So will those initial first steps, since defenders can’t pin what they can’t catch. Hence, the leg strength work he’s also been doing in addition to getting his upper body ready.

“I’ve been training my quads and hamstrings and my glutes,” he said. “That helps me speed train so I can get faster.”

His body is apparently responding in-kind, starting to show gains from the type of “pro level style” workouts he’d been unable to handle a year or two ago. He figures he’s now “caught up” physically to such adult demands, which, for teenagers, can vary greatly from one individual to the next.

As for his mind, O’Brien feels ready to go.

He got a taste of pro hockey in a four-game AHL playoff stint with Coachella Valley a few months back once Brantford was ousted in Game 7 of the OHL conference final. That was enough to show O’Brien where he needed to spend the summer bettering himself.

One thing he noticed was how “structured” the pro game is, where it’s tougher to get away from defenders.

“In junior hockey, you don’t have that guy kind of always on your back and checking you really hard. And maybe you can get through the neutral zone pretty easily.

“It’s definitely a step above junior hockey, for sure,” he added. “But I think with my brain, my smarts and my ability, I’ll step in and learn quickly.”

So, he’s worked on physical change back in Toronto with elite trainer Mat Nichol, whose stable of clients hails from all sports and includes several NHL regulars such as Kraken winger Jared McCann. Seeing those pros work out up close has given O’Brien a glance at where his own intensity level needs to be; a learning process that continued with this month’s visit here to take advantage of Kraken Community Iceplex facilities and the team’s training staff.

O’Brien took in a little more of Seattle as well; having glimpsed it a bit already in Kraken Development Camp outings the past two summers. He attended the Mariners game at T-Mobile Park last Sunday and also got in some salmon fishing on the Puget Sound with assistant athletic trainer Jake Jensen.

Fishing is a passion for O’Brien back at his family’s lake house in Bobcaygeon, a village about 100 miles outside of Toronto. But where that’s freshwater fishing, O’Brien admits the salt water kind here has opened up a whole new set of possibilities for him he’s looking forward to exploring further.

But first, he needs to master the on-ice challenges of pro hockey and the pressures that come with greater expectations. He’s already been handling it, in many ways, since the Kraken drafted him more than 13 months ago and immediately ensured the Branford captain would spend the past season scrutinized like never before.

“I think I’m more mature now,” he said. “Obviously, you kind of have the media on you and you definitely have more pressure than before because the (Kraken) team is looking to get a lot out of you.”

“That’s why they drafted you in the top-10,” he added. “So, I feel like I’ve matured in a better way.”

And if his growing body keeps maturing along with him, the Kraken will be looking to start getting a lot out of him sooner rather than later.