There are some legendary hockey ties in Dakoda Rhéaume-Mullen’s family.
His mother, Manon Rhéaume, made history as the first woman to sign a professional hockey contract and to play in an NHL game, appearing in preseason games with the Tampa Bay Lightning in 1992 and ’93.
And his uncle, Pascal Rhéaume, won a Stanley Cup with the New Jersey Devils in 2003.
“Hockey was kind of like my first love. Like, it’s everything,” said Dakoda, a free-agent invite to this year’s Penguins Prospect Development Camp. “It started with just playing mini sticks with my brother, my cousins, and everyone. I was just always on the ice with my family and going to tournaments for my brother and for my mom. It’s just always been a part of me.”
It was at those tournaments that Dakoda began to realize the magnitude of Manon’s impact on the game, as she is a trailblazer and one of the most influential figures in women’s hockey history. In addition to her professional stints, she backstopped the Canadian women’s national team to a silver medal at the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan. She also won two gold medals at the IIHF Women’s World Championship.
“When she was coaching girls hockey, we'd go to the rink and there'd be a bunch of little girls going up to her asking her for pictures and her autographs,” Dakoda said. “And then especially too, my brother going to his (Quebec International Pee-Wee Hockey Tournament), it was cool just seeing all the people in Quebec come up to her, whether to say hi or ask her for pictures.”
For the past four seasons, she has worked as a hockey operations and prospects advisor for the Los Angeles Kings while based in Michigan. Now, she begins a new chapter in her career, having been named General Manager of PWHL Detroit earlier this month, one of the four newest expansion teams.
“For her, it’s kind of like a full-circle moment now with there being a professional women’s league,” Dakoda said. “She’s having a lot of fun, and it’s really cool to see. She’s also super competitive. Her trying to build a competitive team is fun for me to watch, too.”
As if that wasn’t motivating enough for Dakoda to take his hockey career to the next level, he is also inspired by his uncle, who took an unconventional route to eventually becoming a Stanley Cup Champion.
Entering the league in 1996-97 as an undrafted forward, Pascal Rheaume bounced between four organizations before finding his footing as a depth center with the New Jersey Devils in 2002-03, and he would go on to play over 300 NHL games.
“He was in the same kind of spot,” Dakoda said. “He had to earn it all the way up. He kind of had a bumpy road, but eventually he got to that team and ended up winning a Stanley Cup and had a long pro career.”
“I think just sharing stories with him, and, again, learning from him through his career is something that I can have the luxury of doing.”
While the 19-year-old did not hear his name called this year, he already had a contingency plan in place.
“If I didn’t get picked, (the Penguins) said that they would offer me a spot here. So, after the draft, we made the decision to come here,” he said.
With Manon having an 11-year tenure as the Girls' Division Director with the Little Caesars AAA (LCAAA) Hockey Club, Dakoda has grown up in the Detroit area.
He has spent the last two seasons at the University of Michigan, the same team that 2025 first-round pick Will Horcoff is a part of. Tyler Duke also joins Rhéaume-Mullen as a free-agent invitee who also plays for the Wolverines.
Stepping into a brand-new environment on short notice can be challenging, but for both Rhéaume-Mullen and Duke, it is comforting to know they have a familiar face in Horcoff to help them learn more about the Penguins organization.
“He’s my roommate at college, so we hang out a bunch,” Rhéaume-Mullen said. “He’s kind of helped me along here with getting to know everyone, and just kind of taking me through it.”
In the past two seasons, the left-handed defenseman has recorded 27 points (7G-20A) in 75 NCAA games. While Rhéaume-Mullen loves watching defensemen like Cale Makar and Quinn Hughes, he tries to model his game after Gustav Forsling – a steady, reliable shutdown defenseman.
“Just his two-way game and how he’s able to defend at six-foot,” Dakoda said. “Jake Sanderson, too, just with his skating and how he uses it to defend, create offense off the rush, stuff like that. Those are two guys that I can kind of learn from.”
While receiving an invitation to Development Camp is a step in the right direction for Rhéaume-Mullen’s career, he knows that the grind doesn’t stop there.
“I think just how competitive I am, how driven I am, and how much better I can get in the next couple of years, because I’m going to be a free agent now,” he said. “I’m going to have to earn everything.”
