Kraken select center Berkly Catton with No. 8 overall pick in NHL draft

Kraken draft pick Berkly Catton was tired of “shooter tutor” training tarps he’d drape over nets and practice shooting at come summertime, so he literally took matters into his own hands.

Catton, 18, a centerman and the Kraken’s first round, No. 8 overall selection from the Spokane Chiefs in Friday’s NHL Entry Draft, spent three days last summer building a goalie out of wood, slapped some pads and a mask on it and stood it between the pipes for a more realistic look. The improvised practices paid off as Catton went on to a 54-goal, 62-assist season with the Chiefs and entered Friday as the draft’s top scorer before the Kraken took him.

“It’s not the greatest work,” Catton said of his backyard creation at his family’s home in Saskatoon. “The middle part is wood and then I just put goalie equipment over the top and it’s held up pretty well.”

Catton was sure to leave specific openings between the goalie’s pads and under its armpits to practice shooting through. That is, when the makeshift goaltender remained upright. At first, it toppled over whenever a puck hit it — forcing Catton to get even more creative. 

“I had a pole attached to the crossbar so it could absorb a little bit more of the shots and stuff,” Catton said. “But I’m thinking about hanging it from the top of my shooting area now, so we’ll have to see.”

Catton’s natural intelligence on and off the ice is a big part of what led the Kraken to choose him at No. 8 when many analysts had him going just outside the top 10. 

The San Jose Sharks kicked off the NHL’s final “centralized” draft involving staffs of all 32 teams – the plan next year is for teams to draft remotely — by selecting Boston University centerman Macklin Celebrini as widely expected. 

Chicago then chose the first of a series of highly touted defensemen by picking Belarus native Artyom Levshunov from Michigan State at No. 2. Anaheim at No. 3 had the crowd of thousands at Sphere in Las Vegas gasping with surprise in taking Oshawa Generals winger Beckett Sennecke at No. 3, a move than seemed to stun even the player himself.

Day 2 of the draft starts Saturday at 8:30 a.m. PT with the final Rounds 2 through 7. The Kraken have seven more picks, four of them in Rounds 2 and 3.

Several top defensemen, including Zeev Buium from the NCAA champion University of Denver and OHL products Zayne Parekh and Sam Dickinson, remained available Friday when the Kraken’s No. 8 overall pick arrived. But Kraken general manager Ron Francis instead used his opening-round selection on a forward for the fourth time – and a center for the third occasion – in the franchise’s first four drafts. 

“We really liked his hockey IQ,” Francis said of Catton. “And obviously, his skillset. His ability to score and to make plays and he’s definitely got a high level of compete. So, all of those things factor into it.”

And Francis, always a fan of centermen like himself with strong hockey sense, thought the 5-11, 175-pounder was worth taking a bit earlier than many expected. He’d used a No. 2 overall pick three years ago on center Matty Beniers — who announced the Catton selection up on stage with Francis — then a No. 4 choice on Shane Wright in 2022 before going with winger Eduard Sale at No. 20 last summer.

Francis said he even looked at making a trade this time to acquire something in return for a slightly lower draft position in which he could still take Catton.

But with Catton widely expected to go someplace in the top 10-15 slots, Francis felt it wasn’t worth the gamble.

“As the draft progressed, we felt that to move down was almost too risky,” he said. “That we were probably one player outside of the realm of comfortable. And with this guy sitting at No. 8, that was a guy we really liked a lot. So, we didn’t make any moves and we wound up going with him at No. 8.”

Francis said the makeshift goalie built by Catton, whose parents are both teachers and encouraged him to work hard in school from an early age, is one of many things that impressed him.

“I think when you watch him, his hockey IQ is really elite,” Francis said. “So, the fact that he’s into hockey that much and took the time to study that and build his own tool to help make himself better? That’s impressive, especially for a young kid.”

Kraken scouting director Robert Kron said Catton “carried his whole (Spokane) team on his back” this past season.

“He’s an extremely intelligent player with great skills,” Kron said. 

Those skills involve elite-level skating ability and quickness. He saw extensive power play and penalty kill usage and won an impressive 53.4% of faceoffs.

Kron also said Catton’s “playmaking ability” is at a very high level and he projects as an NHL centerman or winger on one of the top two lines. 

For now, he’s got two seasons of Western Hockey League eligibility left. And that means more honing of his left-handed shot in his Saskatoon backyard this summer in preparation for his third Chiefs campaign.

“It’s kind of like shooting on a real goalie almost,” he said of his makeshift substitute. “Although it doesn’t move, it still has the crevices under the pads and over the glove and stuff. So, you can still do that and it feels more real.”

The work helped him enjoy the second-highest scoring season for a 17-year-old in Chiefs history, behind only Pat Falloon, landing Player of the Year honors for Catton in the WHL’s U.S. Division. 

Last August, he led Canada to gold at the Hlinka Gretzky Cup, leading the Under-18 tournament with eight goals and tying for the lead with 10 points in five games.

Plenty of Catton’s 54 goals went “five-hole” between goalies’ pads this season, especially off one-timed shots he feels his device helped him become more accurate at. He also studied ample video and found goalies appeared weaker between the pads when sliding side-to-side ahead of one-timed shots.

He said his father, Chris, and his mother Desrae, teaching eighth and first grades, respectively, certainly helped him study and learn things.

“Yeah, I always did well in school,” he said. “And I think that translated to hockey a little bit and allowed me to maybe showcase that part of my game.”

Still, some family members haven’t been completely won over by his ingenuity. His grandfather, John, wasn’t impressed by his makeshift goalie when it toppled over on every shot. 

“He’s the ultimate woodworker and I’m just a newbie at it or a rookie, I guess,” Catton said. “So, he was just giving it to me a little bit when it wouldn’t stand up and stuff. But ultimately, now he’s saying it’s not too bad.”