As the 2023-24 NHL season kicks off, Carol Schram looks at some of the youngest and oldest players about to play their first big game in The Show, including some in Chicago, Toronto, Anaheim and Buffalo.
"Congratulations — you've made the team."
Those are the words every NHL prospect wanted to hear when season-opening rosters were set on Monday. That assurance is the culmination of years of hard work, the realization of a dream and the opportunity to start collecting a big-league paycheck — players aren't paid during pre-season.
Can the kids make an impact? Sometimes.
Not long after the 2005-06 lockout, a run of teenagers, including Patrick Kane, Gabriel Landeskog, Nathan MacKinnon and Aaron Ekblad, came straight out of their draft years to each win the Calder Trophy. But that hasn't happened for six years now. The last player to do it was Auston Matthews in 2017.
But a young player doesn't need to hit a rookie home run to make himself valuable. Last season, the Dallas Stars took a successful gamble on a slightly under-the-radar 19-year-old when they kept Wyatt Johnston in their opening-night lineup rather than returning him to the OHL's Windsor Spitfires.
The 23rd pick from 2021, Johnston stuck around for all 82 regular-season games and added 19 more in the playoffs. He helped re-ignite the scoring touch of his linemate Jamie Benn and was the youngest player to receive Calder Trophy votes, ultimately finishing fifth.
As we head into the new season, here's a look at some of the youngest — and oldest — NHLers whose first-ever games at hockey's top levels are now just hours or days away.
Winds Of Change in the Windy City
Of course, the spotlight shines brightest on Connor Bedard, the top prospect who has the future of the Chicago Blackhawks in his hands. All eyes will be on the 18-year-old as he lines up for his first-ever NHL faceoff against Sidney Crosby at PPG Paints Arena on Tuesday.
Also new to the league: Bedard's teammate and fellow WHLer Kevin Korchinski. Selected seventh overall in 2022, the 19-year-old would have been required to return to the Seattle Thunderbirds if he hadn't cracked the opening-night lineup, as he is not yet eligible to join the AHL.
Instead, he'll be one of three rookies on the Chicago blueline against Crosby, Malkin and company.
Like Bedard, Korchinski will be playing his first NHL game. Teammate Wyatt Kaiser, 21, logged nine games after coming out of the University of Minnesota-Duluth last season, and Alex Vlasic, at 22, is the greybeard of the group with 21 games played over the last two seasons.
Meanwhile, there's another Bedard connection over in Buffalo. His spring-hockey teammate from childhood, Zach Benson, grabbed the one forward spot open on the run-and-gun Sabres. And while the 13th pick from 2023 finished 45 points behind Bedard in last season's WHL scoring race, that was still good for third place in the league — and Benson's talent shone impressively with the Sabres through pre-season.
The Class of 2022
Benson's WHL teammate from the Winnipeg Ice/Wenatchee Wild, Matthew Savoie, is also a Sabres prospect but was injured during rookie camp. The ninth pick from 2022 is now back on the ice practising as he officially starts the season on Buffalo's season-opening injured reserve list.
Five players from Savoie's 2022 draft class saw at least one NHL game last season, but only first overall pick Juraj Slafkovsky lasted beyond the nine-game cutoff and burned the first year of his entry-level contract.
In addition to Korchinski, two other first-rounders from 2022 are set to debut this week: No. 3 Logan Cooley with the Arizona Coyotes and No. 10 Pavel Mintyukov with the Anaheim Ducks.
No. 20 Ivan Miroshnichenko had a good first camp in Washington after coming over from Russia and is officially on the Capitals' season-opening roster. But the 19-year-old did not skate with the team on Monday, and it's expected that he will be assigned to AHL Hershey.
But never mind the first-rounders. It's a pair of teenagers from the second round in 2022 who have caused a major stir throughout the exhibition period.
Center Fraser Minten, selected at No. 38 by Toronto, has navigated the bright spotlight of the NHL's most intense hockey market like a boss while delivering a solid two-way game on the ice, making him an effective and inexpensive depth piece for the cap-strapped Maple Leafs.
Meanwhile, former Guelph Storm pivot Matthew Poitras, who was selected with the 54th pick by Boston, could find himself playing even higher up the lineup. The Bruins are looking to fill their chasm down the middle, and 2019 first-rounder John Beecher also looks poised to make the jump to the pros.
Selected one spot ahed of Poitras at No. 53, 2023 QMJHL defenseman of the year Tristan Luneau is more quietly joining the OHL's top defenseman, Mintyukov, on the Anaheim blueline.
Other rookies in the opening lineup for the young Ducks are 22-year-old defenseman Jackson LaCombe, with two games of NHL experience, 23-year-old goaltender Lukas Dostal, with 23 games, and 2023's second overall pick, Leo Carlsson, who's on the injured reserve.
The Class of 2023
Carlsson was banged up at the tail end of pre-season. But the Ducks don't play their regular-season opener until Saturday, so maybe he'll be ready to go by then.
Meanwhile, in Columbus, Adam Fantilli joins Bedard and Benson as the opening-night locks from the most recent draft class. The third overall pick was solid in pre-season, with four points in four games, as the Blue Jackets put the turmoil of Mike Babcock's dismissal behind them and skated to a solid 4-3-1 record.
Closing out the Class of '23, Easton Cowan is a sleeper at No. 28 who stuck it out to earn an opening-night roster spot with his hometown team, the Maple Leafs. Cowan joins Minten and grizzled Matthew Knies, with his 10 games of experience from last season, as Toronto's rookie corps.
Never Too Late
At the other end of the spectrum, a handful of European veterans will be seeing the first NHL action of their careers this fall.
Last year, this category was headlined by Andrei Kuzmenko. After many years of service in the KHL, the 26-year-old free agent signed a one-year deal with the Vancouver Canucks and rewarded them with 39 goals — the kind of production that would have earned him Calder votes if he hadn't been past the age cutoff.
Don't expect that kind of impact from 27-year-old Uvis Balinskis, a Latvian who has spent the last three years in the Czech league. But with Ekblad and Brandon Montour on the shelf for the foreseeable future, Balinskis will add some valuable depth to the Florida Panthers blueline.
The Tampa Bay Lightning have also granted late-career opportunities to two players.
Waltteri Merela, an undrafted 25-year-old Finn, is expected to be in the lineup when the Lightning kick off the new season by hosting the Nashville Predators in the first game of Tuesday's triple-header. With four points, the 6-foot-2, 196-pound winger tied for the Bolts' pre-season scoring lead with Brandon Hagel, Nikita Kucherov and Conor Sheary.
After tending the twine for Team Canada in Beijing in 2022 amid a two-season stint in Sweden, 29-year-old Matt Tomkins signed a two-year, two-way deal with the Lightning in May. On Tuesday, he'll be backing up Jonas Johansson as Andrei Vasilevskiy continues his recovery from back surgery.