Development camp scrimmage shows fast paced Seattle Kraken prospects
By Charles Hamaker
Northgate, WA – To wrap up the 2023 development camp, the Seattle Kraken held a scrimmage that saw teams of four on four for two groups (team blue and team white) play in front of a packed rink one at Kraken Community Iceplex. With fans hungry to get back to Kraken hockey, the Seattle prospect pool made sure that those in attendance weren’t starved for offense with 15 goals in total being scored between the two teams as top prospects and lesser-known names alike shined. With a full house of fans, the Kraken staff glued to the glass of their offices, and prospects trying to make their final mark before they head out on their respective ways as the staff makes decisions on where they should go, a unique air set inside of rink one.
Seventh round pick and first black draft selection ever by the Kraken, Zaccharyah Wisdom, sends the puck up the ice (Photo by Liv Lyons)
Offensive onslaught
It was a tough time for those who wanted to witness a defensive performance or goaltender showcase, as the Kraken’s forward prospects and a handful of defensemen participated in a scrimmage that showed off offensive ability. 13 different players scored goals in this game, with all but four of them being scored by forwards. While that makes it tough to judge or really anayalze the defensive play of these skaters or really the goalie performance on either team, also factoring in that the play on the ice was all four-on-four, the offensive activation that the defenseman displayed was key considering the way that the Kraken got input from their d-men at the NHL level, and with how the game of hockey has been evolving of late to see all skaters on the ice having the ability to chip in on offense.
Forward Jani Nyman (in blue, on the left) had a strong scrimmage with two points, battling Zaccharyah Wisdom, in white, on the right) for the puck in this photo (Photo by Liv Lyons)
Comeback kids
Coming out of the first period, the white team lead by a three-goal effort and it appeared that the sort of prospect pool they had was going to overpower the team blue group. While the blue group had plenty of talented names and exciting prospects like Ryan Winterton and Ty Nelson and this year's draft picks like Sale, Rehkopf, Fisker Molgaard, the white team group had more established prospects headlined by Shane Wright. Despite the three-goal deficit, the blue team came out ready to score the first goal of the second period as Ben Wozney found the back of the net from Jani Nyman. While the white team was able to respond with Ben Roger’s goal just a little under two minutes after the Wozney goal, blue team defenseman Ty Nelson unleashed a bomb of a shot to tally another score for his team.
Team White wasn’t going to just allow the comeback to take place unbothered, as Jacob Melanson tallied his second goal of the game to help maintain his team's lead. Trailing by three goals with nine and a half minutes, with the sort of pace this game had seemed, it would be plenty of time for the blue time to mount their comeback effort. The Blue squad scored the next four goals answered, as Jacob Melanson, Eduard Sale, Oscar Fisker Molgaard, and Jani Nyman all found the back of the net with Nyman unleashing a wicked shot after battling through traffic to secure the go-ahead goal. The final minute was intense as the white team pulled goalie Logan Terness (He took over for Vedenpaa as to get the three-goalie white team a different look) was pulled for the extra skater, but the blue teams defensive play helped clear the puck several times.
Exciting forward prospect Jagger Firkus (In white, on the left) looks for a shot, but Ty Nelson (on the ice, in the blue, on the right) lays out to try and block it (Photo by Liv Lyons)
Top performers
Since there was a ton of offensive play from both teams, we’ll break this segment down into two sections to properly spotlight players on both ends that really stood out to us. After all, it would be kinda tough to just shove all of the top players into one general section where they could get mixed up.
Team Blue
Jani Nyman: Nyman has been criticized for his skating ability, being viewed as a bit clumsy and as a heavy skater, and while I won’t necessarily deny that sort of thing, Nyman had a strong scrimmage. With both of his points coming in the game two that saw his team mount their comeback, Nyman assisted on the first goal of the game (Ben Wozney scored) and tallied the game winning goal with 2:52 left to play. He’s got a way to go in terms of his skating and can polish his game more, but a strong scrimmage will be remembered by the coaches and staff.
Ty Nelson: Nelson, who held up the first ever “Stucky Cup,” an award named after assistant equipment manager James Stucky that will be awarded annually to the team that wins the scrimmage as dev camp champions, was arguably the MVP of this event. From his beaming personality to his hard shot that could resemble a hammer, sometimes it’s a wonder why Nelson wasn’t drafted higher in the 2022 NHL Draft, but Seattle didn’t care up his “smaller” height. The thickly built defenseman can activate well into the offensive end, notably seen as he was the fourth overall points leader in this past years OHL Playoffs (four behind other Kraken prospect Ryan Winterton), Nelson is arguably one of the top prospects to watch going forward and could slot into an AHL lineup right now. He displayed that with an assist on Barrett Hall’s goal in the first session before slamming home a shot for his team's second goal of the second session, with 12:22 to play. In addition to the points tallied, Nelson laid out on a few occurrences to block shots and passes, making him the most fun player on the ice to watch.
Team White
Ryan Bottrill: Admittedly, I wasn’t paying attention to Bottrill on day one of camp or even coming into today’s scrimmage event. Bottrill cared not, tallying two goals on the day with both in the first session. Those two goals took place just three and a half minutes apart as Team White built their lead to look dominant in that first session. A somewhat rare occurrence as a college prospect with the Kraken, out of Brown University, it’ll be interesting to see if there’s any sort of future that he may have within the organization.
Jacon Melanson: Melanson is one of a handful of names on Team White that I was really expecting to standout, and he surely did. The big, physical forward that spent time with Sherbrooke and Acadie-Bathurst-Titan in the QMJHL was able to show off his scoring ability while adding the physical aspect as he scored the first goal of the entire scrimmage and added his second score with 10:33 to play in session two. There are a few things that the Amherst, Novascotia born player can learn, like using his big frame in a better way that doesn’t get him suspended, but he was able to show out enough skill to outweight any potential gaffs in today’s scrimmage.
Ben Roger: Roger, like Bottrill, wasn’t a prospect that I was really trying to keep an eye on given the long list of other names that were participating in development camp, but the Kingston Frontenacs player had an impressive scrimmage. The defenseman added a goal, the first for Team White in session two at the 16:42 left mark, and an assist, on Ryan Bottrill’s second goal of the scrimmage in session one. Showing that offensive side of his game is valuable, but failing to see much defense at all in this scrimmage makes it hard to give an accurate judgement on his all-around game if we’re basing things just on development camp.
Goalies: It was tough to measure the five goalies that the Kraken had at development camp given the high-flying offensive output displayed today, but it should be noted that all of them displayed strong saves throughout the entirety of the scrimmage and could easily have a strong game if it was a more traditional five-on-five game with a more realistic game pace. Team blue had Ales Stezka start the game out with Victor Ostman in between the pipes for session two. Niklas Kokko got things started in session one for Team White while Visa Vedenpaa and Logan Terness split time in the second session so that the Kraken staff could get a look at everybody in game speed.
Every year, development camp is an excellent way to check out the Kraken Community Iceplex, see the future of the franchise, and watch some summer hockey (Photos by Liv Lyons)
What’s next?
Following the final day of Development Camp, things slow down for the Kraken (at least for in-person activity) as free agency continues. Following development camp, we won’t see the Kraken hit the ice until September, when training camp starts for Seattle at the Kraken Community Iceplex here in Northgate. For fans starving for hockey, it’s a tough wait to get back to Kraken action, but this development camp is a nice little teaser before we get into the real action when training camp turns into the preseason of the 2023-24 season. It’s somewhat unlikely that we’ll see more than one of these players with the actual Kraken roster at the NHL level this year, with Shane Wright being the only name that has a real chance of doing so. The others in the Seattle prospect pool include Ryker Evans and Tye Kartye, but those two were given the option to take development camp off given the Coachella Valley Firebirds long Calder Cup run this past season.