Skating into the Future

While future Seattle teammates have been skating informally at the Kraken Community Iceplex this month, the official NHL training camp doesn't begin until Sept. 23. For Kraken prospects, training and even regular-season play has already started.
For refresher purposes, let's talk about prospects in professional hockey. Unlike the NFL or NBA, players drafted by National Hockey League teams rarely play for the franchise in their first year or even second or later seasons after being selected.

There can be exceptions in which players drafted early in the first round -- typically top three overall -- make the NHL roster. This season figures to be counter to that trend, since four of the top five prospects in the 2021 NHL Draft all have opted to play at NCAA Division I University of Michigan rather than attend NHL training camps in an attempt to make opening night rosters.
That Wolverine quartet includes Kraken top prospect and No. 2 overall pick, Matty Beniers, who will serve as the team's only underclassman alternate captain when he steps on the ice to kickstart his sophomore season Oct. 8.
One thing to keep in mind about the 2021 NHL draft class across the league: The overwhelming majority of them are 18 years old when selected, some are even 17-year-olds who will turn 18 on or before Sept. 15 of the draft year. And the oldest draftees cannot be older than 19 before Dec. 31 of the draft year.
There is time to develop into players who can thrive at the NHL level. General managers and scouts worry about promoting younger players too soon to face NHL players who are not only older and more experienced, but bigger and stronger.
NHL general managers have long helped the league shape how prospects are developed. Any 2021 draft pick who doesn't make the NHL roster (overwhelmingly the case) has to return to his junior team if he plays in one of the three juniors leagues that form the Canadian Hockey League (CHL), which includes the Western Hockey League (WHL), Ontario Hockey League (OHL) and Quebec Major Junior Hockey League (QMJHL, aka the "Q").
The WHL is the only CHL league with a U.S. division, which includes the Seattle Thunderbirds and Everett Silvertips. Seattle's second-round draft choice (35th overall), defenseman Ryker Evans, will attend training camp with the Kraken. If he doesn't make the NHL roster, he returns to Regina of the WHL, where he scored three goals and added 25 assists in 24 games last season.

Forward Jacob Melanson (QMJHL Acadia-Bathurst), the Kraken's 2021 fifth-round selection, is another CHL player who will be in camp.
CHL draftees who don't make NHL rosters cannot play in the U.S. pro leagues, the American Hockey League or ECHL, until they are 20 years old. That rule is by agreement between the CHL and NHL. It does not apply to European prospects, though many choose to stay in their home countries for at least one more season after getting drafted. The minimum age to play in the AHL is 18.
Like Beniers, the Kraken's 2021 seventh-round pick, Justin Janicke, will not attend training camps. He will compete as a freshman forward at Notre Dame after three seasons playing for the USA Hockey National Team Development Program.
Beniers enjoyed quite the impressive freshman year at Michigan. He played a key role with the gold-medal winning Team USA at the 2021 World Junior Championship last winter, then was fourth among all NCAA players for points per game as a first-year player. He finished the year by playing alongside NHLers, including Kraken forward Colin Blackwell, at the World Championships. Beniers scored a goal, played well on both ends of the ice and logged regular minutes for the bronze-medal Americans.
Two Kraken draft choices are already playing regular-season games for their teams. Fourth-rounder Ville Ottavanien is a 6-foot-4, 201-pound defenseman, 201-pound, who has already played two games for JyP HT Jyvaskyla in SM-Liga, Finland's top professional league. As an 18-year-old, he is getting significant minutes alongside any number of teammates who are in their 20s and 30s.
Goalie Semyon Vyzaovoi is playing for Tolpar Ufa in his native Russia's top junior league called the MHL (the "M" stands for minor). He has a spotless 3-0-0 to date with a .959 save percentage and 1.64 goals-against average going into weekend games.
In future years, it is entirely possible Kraken prospects will be drafted from top professional leagues in Sweden, Russia, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Norway and Switzerland, along with junior leagues in those countries and the USHL, America's top-tier juniors league.
While the NHL Draft is the best-known, highest-profile method of acquiring prospects, teams do sign amateurs who are undrafted and "age-out" of draft eligibility. Another route is signing a player who is drafted but the NHL team selecting him doesn't choose to sign him and thereby surrender rights.

The Kraken first-ever signed player, Luke Henman, is an example of the latter. Originally drafted by the Carolina Hurricanes when Ron Francis was GM for that club, Henman signed with Seattle in May after a stellar year as captain and leading scorer for Blainville-Boisbriand Armada in the Quebec Major Juniors Hockey League.
Henman signed a standard National Hockey League three-year, two-way, entry-level contract with salaries pre-determined for both the American Hockey League and NHL depending on Henman's progress as a prospect in the Kraken's development system.
Two additional players coming to Kraken training prove out that going undrafted doesn't necessarily end your chances to break into the NHL.
Tye Kartye is a 20-year-old left wing who scored 25 goals and notched 28 assists in 64 games for the OHL Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds during the 2019-20 season. The OHL canceled the 2020-21 season.
Kartye and Cole MacKay have been invited to the Kraken's inaugural training camp on amateur tryouts (called ATOs).
MacKay, 20, played right wing for those same Soo Greyhounds in 2019-20, and scored 25 goals himself in 2019-20, matching his teammate and fellow Kraken camp invitee Kartye. The Sault Ste. Marie native MacKay also picked up 26 assists in 64 games.
If either ATO player, or both, impress the Seattle hockey operations group, they could subsequently be signed to entry-level contracts and join the Kraken prospect list.