24 Hours To Seattle

Swedish teenager Loke Krantz was approaching the final hole of a long, frustrating Saturday night round of golf spent constantly refreshing a hockey prospects website on his phone in hopes of an NHL team drafting him.

But as the annual NHL Draft an ocean away reached its 210^th overall pick with only 14 to go, Krantz figured it more realistic to shut his phone off, finish the hole and get home to bed. It was nearing 11 p.m. in his Enköping hometown and though sun and twilight stay out practically all night in Sweden come summer, that didn’t mean Krantz could as well.

It wasn’t until later, golf clubs packed up and the young hockey player already in a homebound car, that his agent phoned and guaranteed Krantz wouldn’t sleep for quite some time to come.

“He told me ‘I have some good news – you have been drafted by the Seattle Kraken’,” Krantz said. “And I just thought ‘Oh, my God.’”

Indeed, the Kraken had made Krantz, 18, a little-known, hard-hitting right wing in the Swedish junior hockey league, their latest draft pick ever at No. 218 out of 224 players taken overall. Even by local standards in Enköping – known as “Sweden’s Closest City” because it sits within a 75-mile radius of one third the country’s population – Krantz had cut it real close.

And he was about to cut things even closer logistically once Kraken team services director Brennan Baxandall jumped on a Facetime call after midnight in Sweden to inform Krantz he needed to be 5,000 miles away in Seattle that very Sunday afternoon. The Kraken hold their annual four-day development camp starting with early morning physical testing the Monday after the draft and prioritize having every pick attend, regardless of where on the planet they happen to be when selected.

“It’s important to have the whole group here,” Baxandall said. “It’s building that chemistry with future teammates, whether they’re with us or at (AHL) Coachella Valley. It’s being a part of the things we’ve laid out for them. It’s kind of an ‘all-in’ experience where they get to know our staff and start building relationships.”

So, excuses about difficult travel logistics aren’t considered acceptable. Not from the drafted players, nor the Kraken staffers responsible for getting them here.

Baxandall and assistant Molli Putlak, along with hockey administration manager Brooke Tanner, had already gotten a jumpstart on Krantz’s travel arrangements. They’d been in the Kraken draft “War Room” about an hour earlier when the team took another Swede in the seventh and final round, picking defenseman Karl Annborn at 205^th overall.

Annborn, 18, was in the Southern Swedish town of Jönköping and from the moment he was drafted, Baxandall, Putlak and Tanner began figuring out how to get him across the ocean. They didn’t have time to use the team’s travel agent, so they worked the bookings themselves.

Tanner made certain Annborn’s travel documents were in order. He’s yet to turn professional, so he didn’t require a work visa to come to the United States. But she nonetheless prepared him a letter to carry explaining the development camp, how it was all-expenses-paid and where he’d be staying in case he was questioned by immigration officials at SeaTac Airport upon arrival.

Putlak was working on other player flights, so Baxandall took over Annborn’s booking.

“I called Karl and he told me he was from a town in Sweden and I don’t know their map very well so I had to look it up as best I could,” Baxandall said. “And then I asked him ‘Where’s your closest airport?’ And he told me to do it from Gothenburg if I could.”

Baxandall logged on the Internet and found a lone Scandinavian Airlines flight that could get Annborn to Seattle in enough time for the start of the team’s Sunday evening activities. But it required leaving Gothenburg at 6:25 a.m. and landing in Copenhagen, Denmark, ahead of a connecting flight a few hours later. Thing is, Annborn already faced a 90-minute drive from Jönköping to Gothenburg ahead of that first flight, so there wasn’t much time.

“So, I called him right back,” Baxandall said. “And I said: ‘I’m going to send you your flight as soon as it’s booked, but you need to start packing now because you’ve got a bit of a drive and then your flight is in six hours.’ ”

On the other end of the line, Annborn’s mind was racing a mile a minute. He’d already spent several hours with his parents, a brother, his cousins and some friends glued to the draft on a television in his family’s home; a draining ordeal in which he’d started losing hope after the initial six rounds.

“I’d always hoped I’d get picked but as the rounds went by, I started to have less and less hope,” Annborn admitted. “But then, when I heard my name, it was unbelievable.”

That elation was short-lived as Annborn scrambled to pack required hockey gear and clothes for the five-day Seattle trip.

“When you watch the draft, you don’t really know when you’re going to get picked and what happens next,” he said. “Some teams do their (development) camps early, some go later. So, when the Kraken picked me, I didn’t know what was going to happen. But I was ready to have to leave quickly.”

As he was packing, Tanner sent Annborn a follow-up email repeating exactly what items to bring plus an invite to join the Kraken’s in-house Teamworks smartphone application – containing a detailed schedule of team workouts and events for the week.

The details were coming at Annborn fast and furious. But Annborn absorbed it all, got his packing done and even dozed off for a few moments before hopping in the car with his father, Olle, at 2 a.m. for the long airport drive.

Once Annborn’s flight was booked, Baxandall, knowing about the Scandinavian Airlines route through Copenhagen, had a head start on getting Krantz overseas the moment he was drafted. It made things easier that Krantz’s hometown was in Central Sweden, as opposed to Annborn’s more southern point of origin. That meant Krantz could take a later 9:55 a.m. flight out of the airport in Stockholm and get to Copenhagen for the same 1:05 p.m. flight to Seattle as Annborn.

So, Baxandall jumped on a Facetime call with Krantz and his mother in Sweden and told him to get packing.

“I was stressed,” Krantz said with a chuckle. “My parents were also stressed because they had to help me pack all the stuff. But they were also very happy for me.”

With a little more time on his side, Krantz even snatched a couple of hours of sleep before waking up for his hour-long drive to Stockholm.

He and Annborn already knew each other from playing on Sweden’s U17 national team last year. They met up at the airport in Copenhagen, bleary eyed and exchanging respective draft stories while wondering what lay ahead following their upcoming nine-hour flight.

Neither player remained awake long once taking their premium economy class seats for the Transatlantic journey – having been running on mostly adrenaline for more than 30 hours since waking up Saturday morning.

Annborn figures he slept the entire flight; Krantz about two-thirds of it.

While the Swedes were beginning their early morning journeys, the Kraken staffers back in Seattle had been finishing theirs late into the post-draft Saturday afternoon and early evening.

“I think the biggest challenge we had with the two of them was it was getting right to the end of the draft, and we were already booking five or six other flights,” team services assistant Puklak said. “And it’s not just the flights. It’s also the stuff at the other end. Like, once they’re at the airport, how are they getting to us here? And all that kind of stuff just keeps adding on and on.”

Hockey administration manager Tanner said she and Putlak typically “tag team” logistical issues well, though things got chaotic towards the end. “Just as we were adding those two seventh rounders, at the same time we were also getting free agents thrown at us and being added to the development camp roster,” Tanner said. “So, it was just adding volume. But honestly, she and I typically do a really good job splitting things up between us and helping each other out.”

Tanner, Putlak and Baxandall also took turns making sure the new Residence Inn hotel directly across from the Kraken Community Iceplex added the names of all late add-on players to their room list for the week.

“They were sold out the night before,” Baxandall said. “So, luckily, we got everyone in.”

Just before 2 p.m. on Sunday, the flight from Copenhagen touched down at SeaTac. Sweden is nine hours ahead of Seattle, so it had been 24 hours since the Kraken had drafted the seventh rounders.

But they were finally here.

Two hours later, having cleared customs with luggage and equipment in-hand, Krantz and Annborn were picked up by team-arranged town car service and driven a half-hour north to the hotel.

“We know how crazy SeaTac is,” Baxandall said. “So, we’re trying to make it easy for these 18-year-olds who are arriving from Europe for the first time in a foreign country. So, we want to make sure they get picked up and taken to the right place.”

And that they have the hockey equipment they started out with. It isn’t uncommon for entire sets of gear to go missing in-transit. This year, Baxandall said “only” three hockey sticks went missing out of the entire roster of traveling players.

Both players arrived at the hotel by late afternoon just ahead of a team reception and dinner for players, coaches, scouts and staff.

“I was very tired,” Krantz admitted.

But he and Annborn were at a team breakfast by 7 a.m. the following morning ahead of scheduled physical testing. And by Monday evening, they were seated along the first base line at T-Mobile Park attending a Mariners game against the Kansas City Royals.

Krantz and Annborn had never seen a baseball game before.

“It was cool to be there because the atmosphere was just incredible,” Krantz said. “But I don’t really know baseball because it isn’t a big sport in Sweden. I only know home runs.”

For Annborn, the crowd around him watching a sport he’d never before seen in a city he’d never previously been to made him reflect on all he’d experienced the prior 24 hours. And how far he’d come since sitting with his family watching TV in Sweden waiting for his name to be called.

“It was all very surreal,” he said.

And about to get even more so as a chaotic week continued with a visit to Pike Place Market, where players caught and tossed salmon thrown by fishmongers. They also took in the Seahawks’ training facility in Renton.

And of course, they had Tuesday and Wednesday morning hockey workouts, where the Swedish seventh rounders strove to hold their own alongside other prospects taken multiple rounds higher than they were. For the most part, they did. The development camp isn’t meant to be an evaluation process as much as an acclimation effort.

And by the end, Krantz and Annborn felt they’d shown they belonged.

It didn’t hurt that both factored prominently in the annual “Stucky Cup” 4-on-4 scrimmage played Thursday morning at the Iceplex in front of hundreds of Kraken fans. Their Blue team trailed 3-1 with fewer than 15 minutes to play but rallied within one goal and then saw Krantz notch his second assist of the day by setting up Ben MacDonald – a third round pick from 2022 – for the equalizer.

Then, with 1:52 to play in regulation, defenseman Annborn took a pass in the high slot and snapped home the game’s decisive goal to cap a 4-3 comeback win. Peeling off his equipment in the locker room afterwards, Annborn reflected on all he’d been through since the draft and the prior Sunday’s 2 a.m. sprint to the airport.

“It’s been a great week,” he said.

Then, he paused and added: “Even without scoring that goal, it was a real fun week and a good learning experience.”

Fellow Swede Krantz was awarded the Stucky Cup’s third star by virtue of his two assists. He was promptly handed a stuffed salmon replica fish to toss to the crowd as per Kraken tradition.

“I didn’t really know what to do with it, but they just told me to throw it in the crowd,” Krantz said. “So, I said ‘Oh, is that all?’ So, I did it. It was a lot easier than throwing a real one at the market.”

Just as the return to Sweden the following afternoon proved easier on both teenagers than getting here; their lives as NHL prospects solidified and ever more familiar.