Beniers embraces Bergeron comparisons with Kraken

LAS VEGAS -- The small, replica Calder Trophy that Matty Beniers received from the NHL is on display in his father's home office.

The Seattle Kraken center said his dad, Bob, also has pucks from his first NHL game and his first NHL goal. Heck, the Bob Beniers collection includes pucks from Matty's time as a kid playing for the South Shore Kings, an amateur program based in Foxborough, Massachusetts.

"I got my dad a puck case for Christmas one year when I was really young," Matty said. "It was for me and my brother's pucks that we would give him. There's probably 25 or 30 pucks in there now. It's from where we started. Basically, the whole timeline is me playing South Shore Kings when I was 10 years old to now. My brother's pucks are in there as well. It's pretty cool."

Bob might eventually need a bigger office to house Matty's memorabilia. If the 20-year-old keeps trending the way he is, there's going to be a lot more hardware and pucks coming into the family home in Hingham, Massachusetts.

Beniers won the Calder Trophy voted as the NHL rookie of the year last season, when he had 57 points (24 goals, 33 assists) in 80 games. He is already considered one of the League's burgeoning top two-way centers and a potential future Selke Trophy winner as best defensive forward.

The Kraken (0-2-1) play their home opener against the Colorado Avalanche at Climate Pledge Arena on Tuesday (10 p.m. ET; ESPN, SNP). Beniers is without a point and minus-3 in his first three games, but there's nobody in Seattle who is worried about that being a trend.

"He's a guy that pays attention," Seattle coach Dave Hakstol said. "It's not specific details, he pays attention to details up and down the rink in a 200-foot sense. He's accountable to himself mostly. He wants to be really good in all of those areas both with and without the puck. The overall game he processes very well, with and without the puck. A lot of times players see it one way much better than they do on the other side of the puck, but Matty tends to process the game really well both directions. That's apparent in his overall game."

Hearing that means it should come as no surprise Beniers grew up southeast of Boston idolizing Patrice Bergeron.

"That was who I tried to emulate," Beniers said.

The former Boston Bruins center won the Selke Trophy a record six times, including last season. He announced his retirement July 25, leaving a legacy that may never be matched.

Beniers will try, though, and he has already drawn loose comparisons to Bergeron.

He joked that he himself once made that comparison, but others have hinted at it too in a serious way, perhaps most notably Bruins coach Jim Montgomery, when he said last season that Beniers has some of Bergeron's qualities in how he plays away from the puck.

"Yeah, I mean, I've talked to him before about it and I know that's how he sees himself, which is a unique one," Kraken forward Jordan Eberle said. "Most guys come into the League think of themselves as top scoring, big point producing player. Bergeron, obviously a Hall of Famer and a guy who put up huge numbers, but he's most well-known for the number of Selkes he won and the defensive side of the puck.

“To hear a young kid with that kind of mindset is rare and exciting. He wants to win. Yeah, there's definitely a comparison to be made. As he gets stronger and gets older and gets more experience in this league, he can do that for sure."

Beniers thinks he plays a different style than Bergeron, but the nuts and bolts are similar.

"I try to emulate the idea of his game, the 200-foot player, the guy who is going to be super responsible on the ice and be put in every situation but also is going to score goals," Beniers said. "I want to be exactly like that."

He saw it firsthand last season in a 3-0 Kraken win against the Bruins at TD Garden on Jan. 12. Beniers was 1-for-4 at the face-off dot against Bergeron.

"The first time I lined up against him he raked me back right off the draw, didn't have a chance," Beniers said.

It was both a lesson and a dream come true.

"It was pretty surreal, pretty cool," he said. "My parents were at the game, and they came back after and even they said, 'That was pretty cool.'"

Not surprisingly, Beniers doesn't want to take it too far with the Bergeron comparisons. He's smart enough to know it's way too premature for anything like that. And he's trying to carve his own path with the Kraken. It starts with consistency.

"There's always the next challenge," Hakstol said. "Last year it was the challenge of becoming comfortable in the League and the second half of the year it was becoming a little more comfortable with some of the tougher matchups and rolling that into the playoff level. At every different turn he learns, and he grows and he applies it to the future for his game."

Hakstol said the key for Beniers this season is to remain true to himself and who he was last season.

"That's the biggest challenge and I don't think that's going to be difficult for him," Hakstol said. "He's a guy who loves the game, loves to compete, is very intelligent and knows some of the different challenges that are in front of him. I said it probably a million times last year one of the things I love most about Matty is whether it's coming off a win, a loss, a great night or not such a good night he shows up at the rink the next day ready to go and brings that type of life and energy to everybody around him."

Eberle also talked about Beniers' youthful enthusiasm.

"It's fun to be around him," Eberle said.

That's why he goes by Matty and has since birth.

"I like to say it's because I was too energetic for Matt," Beniers said. "Like, Matt is too serious for me, and Matthew is only when I'm in trouble. I was always Matty. No one ever called me Matt or Matthew, not my friends or my family. It makes sense. Matty is fun and energetic."

Matty is also serious about hockey, about playing a two-way game, and about adding more memorabilia to his dad's collection.