From The Archive: Lows & Highs

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By Marisa Ingemi

Matty Beniers has witnessed his fair share of relative lows during the pandemic.

First, he lost what would have been a freshman season with home-state Harvard due to the Ivy League schools opting out of the ECAC’s 2020-21 season. He did win gold with Team USA at the World Junior Championship at the start of 2021 – but the only celebratory screams came from ice level, as the event was played in front of empty stands in Edmonton, something that had become the norm in big hockey moments in the era of COVID-19. Then, with a chance to repeat at the WJC, the 2022 event was shut down after just four days.

But there have also been moments of brightness. After Havard’s season was snuffed out, Beniers switched his commitment to powerhouse Michigan, where he racked up 10 goals and 24 points in 24 games. His performance made believers out of the expansion Seattle Kraken, who drafted him second overall in July. Instead of going pro, he went back to school on a mission to win the Big Ten and go deeper into the post-season, having become a believer in the Wolverines team he had become a part of in Ann Arbor.

Then came the Olympics, a space he never expected to be in – even after representing the U.S. at the 2021 World Championship. But after COVID tore through the NHL and sank its Olympic participation, Beniers was named to the American team, scoring a goal and two points while averaging 19:39 in ice time in four games.

So Beniers got another chance on the international stage, and while the Americans, who lost in the quarterfinal to Slovakia, didn’t fare as well as the junior squad likely would have, “Olympian” was added to his growing resume. A month from now, that resume could include “NHL player.” Things tends to move quickly for Beniers, and his leap to the NHL could be a part of that trend.

Some of those moves have been forced upon him. He didn’t have a choice with what happened at Harvard, but he knew Michigan would be his best all-around option, and it has been. In his sophomore season, the Wolverines were ranked No. 4 in the nation in early March and were set to play in the Big Ten tournament final. Beniers won the conference scoring title and tied for 15th in the country in points, with 40 across 33 games. And beyond the hockey, there’s been plenty of benefits to life on campus.

“It’s been really nice to kind of be at school, and COVID isn’t as much of a factor (as in the NHL),” he said. “It’s been cool being able to go to the football games, get to go to basketball games. It’s just an extra perk of going back to school.”

Four seasons ago, Beniers, a native of Hingham, Mass., spent a year at Milton Academy, a Boston-area prep school. It was there that he, and those around him, realized he could elevate his game to the next level. More than that, Milton coach Paul Cannata saw a leader.

“When he toured Milton, I spent some time with him and walked around with them,” Cannata said, “Obviously his brother and sister had gone to the school, but I was amazed at what he remembered of their times there. His sister was in a lot of dance and theater musical productions. And he just started rattling off the ones that she was in and what he remembers when I saw the same show. He’s got some gifts that way. A 13-year-old boy remembering what his sister did three or four years earlier? Virtually unheard of.”

Cannata knew there was something special in the way Beniers adapted on the ice as well, as a ninth-grader who was significantly smaller than most of his competition – and even his teammates. He separated from the pack quickly, though, going from Milton to the Cape Cod Whalers U-16 club and then USA Hockey’s National Team Development Program.

The decision on the next step in the 19-year-old’s career likely will come from the Kraken. The organization, floundering in its first campaign, could make the choice to bring Beniers along before this season comes to a close. Doing so would cost a year of his three-year, entry-level deal, leaving them with just two full seasons before he would become a restricted free agent. “Usually with higher picks, the agent and the player want you to, in essence, ‘burn’ the year,” said Kraken GM Ron Francis to reporters in early March.

“So in theory, at the end of his season with Michigan, if he wanted to come out, that’s the deal we would most likely look to do, to try and sign him and burn a year and get him into our lineup.”

The Kraken may find it worthwhile to give him that taste of The Show before he attends his first NHL training camp in September. At the beginning of March, Seattle extended 25-year-old center Jared McCann for five years and $25 million, making him the first player to re-sign with the club. It was one of their first moves dedicated to the future and to establishing a core. Beniers is projected to be at the center of that core, and there are high expectations for him.

The Olympics were a good measuring stick for Beniers, and if he’s worried about making the adjustment to the NHL, he’s not showing it.

“I think going to the Olympics and playing there was good for me and to see where I’m at,” said Beniers on a conference call in early March. “I think I can be good. You never really know, but I think that whatever happens, I’ll make it work. I think with my speed and skill and work ethic, I should be fine.”