How Kraken Prospect Berkly Catton's Post-WJC 'Reset' Turned Into A Scoring Rampage

The World Junior Championship was “a real kick in the nuts” for Chris Catton’s son.

We know this, well, because we watched it and that’s exactly how he described it. So after the debacle came to an end, Chris Catton’s kid went home to Saskatoon for a few days and immediately headed to the place where he has always found refuge.

After the tournament, one of the first places Berkly Catton went was the Dr. John G. Egnatoff School Rink on Kenderdine Road, where he could be alone with his stick and puck and watch his breath fade into the prairie sky.

“It was therapeutic,” Berkly Catton said. “Instead of 20,000 people screaming, it was not a sound, except for the puck hitting the boards. It felt like it reset me.”

It was the same place Berkly went almost three years ago after the Saskatoon Contacts under-18 team was eliminated in three straight games in the playoffs by the Saskatoon Blazers, who were led by Roger McQueen, a top-five candidate for the 2025 NHL draft. Chris got worried when his son didn’t come home after the game. In the wee hours of the morning, he decided to check the only place he thought his son would be.

“Sure enough, he was out there at 1:30 in the morning in the dark,” Chris said. “As he’s gotten older, he’s gotten a little better, but he’s always been a kid who has had a hard time letting go when things didn’t go his way.”

That borderline unhealthy obsession has served Catton well on his way to becoming the Seattle Kraken’s top prospect.

Chris said his son would stickhandle with a ball and mini-sticks for hours on end in the family’s kitchen from the time he was four. Berkly credits the 36-by-24-foot backyard rink that Chris built as a big contributor to his abilities to stickhandle and create offense in tight quarters. That rink has since been replaced by a shooting area in the backyard where Catton and Chicago Blackhawks prospect Kevin Korchinski spend hours in the summer perfecting their shots.

“We’d go out in the backyard, and he’d specifically ask me to pass pucks into his feet,” said Chris, a Grade 7 science and math teacher. “He always wanted me to give him bad passes, and I’d ask why, and he’d say, ‘Because those are the passes you have to learn to take. The good ones are easy.’ ”

But his persistence has also caused him a few problems over the years.

At the NHL draft last summer, Catton had a series of photos embossed on the inside of his suit jacket that saluted the people who helped him get to that day, along with hockey photos from his childhood. On the bottom left is a photo of a very young Catton with cheeks that are dangerously red. Turns out there was a day when the temperature dipped to about minus-34 – Celsius, Fahrenheit, they’re almost the same when it’s that cold out – and he refused to come off the ice into the house. It ended up that Catton had a serious case of frostbite, an affliction of which he’s reminded pretty much every time he feels the cold weather on his face these days.

That wasn’t as bad as the time when he was 14 and an extended outdoor stint at the Egnatoff Rink led to a trip to the emergency room after his foot got so cold that his big toe turned purple. Coincidentally, he was out there with Caden Price, his boyhood friend who the Kraken drafted 84th overall in 2023.

“They almost had to chop my toe off,” Catton said. “Thank God it never came to that. It’s not smart, but those are some of my fondest memories. When I look back at it, I don’t remember the cold toes. All I remember was how much fun I had.”

It’s a good thing Catton has retained all his foot digits, since all 10 of them help make up two feet that need to move quickly. Among Catton’s best attributes is his edge work, which allows him to make plays at top speed. He is definitely not a huge player, especially for a center, but he’s the same height and only 10 pounds lighter than Connor Bedard. Catton idolized Sidney Crosby as a youngster, but he has since come to appreciate another dangerous, undersized center who can take over a game.

“A guy like Jack Hughes is so elite, and he’s so fun to watch,” Catton said. “There are a lot of times I’ll watch his game on a Friday night and come Saturday, I’m trying to do some of that stuff myself. Just how fast he is through the middle of the ice and how much he demands the puck, I think are some similarities to my game.”

We know he can create offense. After leading Canada in scoring at the 2023 U-18 Hlinka Gretzky Cup, Catton posted 116 points and 1.71 points per game for the WHL’s Spokane Chiefs, which led all draft-eligible players last season. His 1.87 points per game is third-best in the WHL this season, and, as disappointing as his experience was at the world juniors, Catton returned to the WHL – after his brief stay in Saskatoon – like a man possessed. In his first 10 games after the WJC, Catton posted 24 points, including a one-goal, six-assist effort in his second game back. In one game in mid-January, he registered 10 shots on goal, then followed up with nine more shots two nights later.

There are scouts who doubt whether he’ll be as prolific in the NHL, and the fact is there are a rare few who can put up those kinds of numbers in the best league in the world. But Catton is projected as a productive top-six forward, which is encouraging to the Kraken, who have built up an impressive stockpile of young and talented forwards.

Catton’s 200-foot game is improving and will serve him well at the next level. And if he finds he can’t produce in the NHL the way he has at lower levels, he is versatile enough to still be an effective player. The thing about Catton is he makes up for average top speed with incredible edge work, and even though his tools are not elite, his hockey sense is.

Catton had just one assist in five games at the world juniors, but he has managed to find the positives in the experience and knows he’ll have the opportunity to be an impactful offensive player next year on a team that should be much better.

“There was a lot to learn from it,” Catton said. “If you asked all of the guys on that team, we’re probably stronger people and better hockey players from it, even though it wasn’t what we wanted. Now we know how awful it feels to lose out of the tournament that early, and that experience alone will drive us to a way better position.”

Catton is hoping that if he gets a chance to go back to the Dr. John G. Egnatoff School Rink on Kenderdine Road in Saskatoon after the world juniors next year, he’ll be in a much better frame of mind, preferably with a gold medal in his collection. And he’ll be sure to guard against frostbite.

This article appeared in our 2025 Future Watch issue. Our cover story focuses on Ducks prospect Beckett Sennecke, who is tearing it up with the OHL's Oshawa Generals this season. We also include features on other exceptional NHL prospects, including: Zayne Parekh, Porter Martone, Gavin McKenna and more. In addition, we look at the top 10 prospects in the pipeline for each of the 32 NHL clubs.

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