The Seattle Kraken’s rocky situation with Shane Wright may feel messy, but the 2022 NHL Draft has turned into a mess for a lot of teams.
Wright was viewed as a major bargain when he slipped to fourth overall four years ago. At the time, it looked like Seattle had landed a gift.
Instead, things have gone sideways for both sides. The tension that had been whispered about for months became public earlier this month, when Wright’s representatives said they had requested a trade and that the Kraken were willing to move him if the return was right.
That kind of fallout is hardly rare from that draft class. Four of the top nine picks have already been traded, and one of them has been dealt twice. Even the players who have found some NHL success have still run into their own problems.
The only clear hit among the first nine is Juraj Slafkovsky, the No. 1 pick to Montreal. He and the Canadiens have worked out just fine, and the decision to pass on Wright has aged well for the Habs. Slafkovsky scored 30 goals last year as Montreal reached the Eastern Conference Finals.
After that, the class starts to wobble. New Jersey moved on from Šimon Nemec on June 23, sending him to Calgary rather than paying what he would have asked for as an RFA. Pucks and Pitchforks described his profile this way: “His underlying numbers were frequently bottom-of-the-barrel,” says Pucks and Pitchforks, “with his legitimately strong offensive instincts consistently being outweighed by his putrid defensive play, body language, and effort.”
Logan Cooley, taken third by Arizona and now with Utah, has shown plenty. The Mammoth are not unhappy with him, especially after he stood out in his playoff debut this spring.
But the posts have been brutal to him. In mid-December against Vancouver, he spun out and slammed his knee into the right post, an injury that cost him two months on LTIR.
Then in March, he drove between Pittsburgh defenders and crashed hard into the left post.
Wright’s own line has gone the wrong direction. He dropped from 19 goals in his first full season to 12 last year.
Still, Kraken GM Jason Botterill recently pointed to more than the scoring totals. “You look at the stats, it might have dropped off a little bit.
But I think his two-way play actually improved a lot.” Is that for the ears of potential trade partners?
The chaos kept building further down the board. Cutter Gauthier, taken fifth by Philadelphia, is now known around the league as “the 41-goal scorer for the Anaheim Ducks.”
The Flyers, naturally, would use different language. He skipped development camp, refused to speak with team executives, and forced a trade by Jan., 2024.
Flyers CEO Dan Hilferty put it bluntly: “We don’t know to this day,” said Flyers CEO Dan Hilferty.
David Jiříček, the sixth pick, is already on his third NHL team. Columbus sent him to Minnesota in Nov., 2024, and then the Wild flipped him to the Flyers at last season’s trade deadline.
Hockey Wilderness tied his struggles to familiar issues: “The issues that led Jiříček to fall out of favor in Columbus,” wrote Hockey Wilderness, “his skating and decision-making, cropped up in Minnesota, making that a failure of scouting, development, or both.” Et tu, Kraken?
Chicago’s Kevin Korchinski offers a different kind of warning sign. The Saskatoon defenseman played 76 games as a 19-year-old rookie, then appeared in just 29 games total over the next two seasons.
Blackhawks Up called him the “reverse Shane Wright,” and added: “Playing in the NHL too early made Korchinski lose his confidence,” suggests Blackhawks Up. “He no longer has that swagger or displays the smooth skating that made him go seventh overall.”
Marco Kasper, selected eighth by Detroit, has also hit a rough patch. After scoring 19 goals two years ago, he went 37 games between his third and fourth goals last season, and that fourth goal came into an empty net.
Todd McLellan summed up the challenge: “It’s difficult,” said Wings coach Todd McLellan, “when you’ve entered the league and a lot of good things have happened for you, and then you come back and all that momentum goes away.” Sound familiar?
Matthew Savoie, the ninth pick, is the fourth player from the top nine no longer with the team that drafted him. Buffalo gave him just one game before trading him to Edmonton in 2024.
He did finish last season well, scoring nine of his 18 goals over the final 24 games. But that stretch came after he was moved onto Connor McDavid’s line.
Oilers Nation put the bigger picture this way: “According to HockeyViz, Savoie drove play at the rate of a low-end fourth-liner.” Double Oh.
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