Middle Ice Stability Emerges As Kraken Strength 

Kraken center Matty Beniers knows as well as anyone that stabilizing a team’s core starts down the middle of the ice.

And Beniers, already in town partaking in unofficial “Captain’s Skates” with his Kraken teammates, isn’t the only person noting the importance of a middle core. In its annual “NHL Pipeline Rankings” released two weeks ago, examining each team’s top Under-23 age players, The Athletic ranked the Kraken a strong 6th out of 32 clubs and cited their young centermen as the key reason.

“Seattle has one of the best collections of young centers and arguably forwards in the league,” the website’s draft specialist Corey Pronman wrote. “Matty Beniers, Jake O’Brien, Shane Wright and Berkly Catton all project as legit top two-line pivots and having four of them gives Seattle a lot of options.”

Indeed, it does. Beniers understands that part.

“Everyone’s a bit biased about their own position, but I think center is a hard one to play and to be successful at in the NHL,” Beniers said. “And so, having four young guys that understand the position and can play it well and can grow and learn in this environment and get better from watching older guys, it’s great.”

What makes this ranking different from typical prospects lists of pros or junior players untested at the NHL level is that, as mentioned, it includes guys already playing for the Kraken. Predicting any team’s talent future is a tough exercise, but there’s also a big difference between untested prospects and proven NHL players.

And the more proven a young NHL player gets, the easier it becomes to have that projected talent level morph into focus. That’s because developing one’s talent to its fullest potential often requires a level of commitment young players don’t experience until reaching the NHL, where attention to perfecting minute details can be what separates great from average.

“Every year, it’s all about getting better,” Beniers said. “You can continue to grow your game and get better in the NHL while building more confidence and growing comfortable with the league.”

For those interested in the future part of the Kraken, the team’s annual Rookie Camp got underway Thursday and continues Friday at the Kraken Community Iceplex. Among those on the ice was Catton, who could get his first NHL shot this fall. O’Brien was also out there as well, but he was drafted No. 8 overall in June and still has a couple of additional junior hockey seasons to go before turning pro. Other forwards partaking in the camp who could see time with the Kraken this coming season or the next couple include Jani Nyman, Ryan Winterton, Jacob Melanson and Eduard Sale.

Catton will get a long look for the NHL roster at only 19 after again dominating the Western Hockey League last season and still being a year too young for AHL eligibility. Nobody expects him to dominate in the NHL right away, and it’s likely he’d be eased in to any early Kraken time playing on the wing, given the team’s four center spots are occupied by Beniers and Wright and veterans Chandler Stephenson and Frédérick Gaudreau.

But if Catton secures a chance to start his NHL career this fall, much as Wright did under similar circumstances three years ago, he’ll be a huge step closer to a full-time Kraken role. And if that happens, it would give three Kraken three centermen with top potential on a team that already has veteran Stephenson locked up six more years.

And then you’d have O’Brien ostensibly knocking on the door a few years from now ready to step in and demonstrate his first-round pedigree.

It wasn’t only centermen that helped garner the Kraken’s high ranking on The Athletic’s list.

Others among the top 10 players included in that ranking were forwards Nyman, Winterton, Sale, Carson Rehkopf and Julius Miettinen. Nyman already got his first 12-game NHL taste with the Kraken last season and could make the team this fall on right wing after scoring three goals and adding three assists.

Winterton got in an introductory dozen Kraken games last season and nine the prior campaign.

But it’s the “NHL tested” part of the Kraken’s Under-23 brigade in Beniers and Wright that truly secured the team’s high ranking. Those two players could be seen on the ice right before the rookies on Thursday in the latest of the unofficial captain’s skates that NHL regulars typically use throughout September to ready for training camp minus the on-ice supervision of any coaches.

Beniers is embarking on his fourth full Kraken season, Wright his second.

They are no longer just dipping skate toes into some frozen NHL pond. Both are expected to be integral parts of the top three Kraken lines along with Stephenson, while veteran Gaudreau was brought in to primarily center the fourth.

And Beniers and Wright are now getting even closer to reaching their envisioned potential, with both not even 23, which will factor in to what awaits the Kraken between now and next spring. Building a team’s core down the middle is typically the toughest part of constructing a championship-level roster, and the Kraken appear ahead of the curve on that front compared to most NHL teams.

Beniers, 22, the 2022-23 Calder Trophy winner as the league’s top rookie, is coming off a 20-goal season – his second campaign reaching at least that total – while drawing increasingly tough assignments against top opposing lines. Wright, 21, scored 19 goals in his first complete season of 79 games, having played just eight at the NHL level in each of his prior two campaigns.

“From last year, I think just my skating has gotten better and you know, I’ve also worked on improving the little parts of my game,” Beniers said. “My faceoffs, my strength, my shot. Also, my deception passing. You just find the little things you think you can add to your game and that’s what you do over the summer. You hone and perfect them.”

Just as the Kraken have been honing and perfecting a middle-ice core that seems poised to lead it for years to come.