Sherwood Park's Cootes likely going in mid-first round of upcoming NHL Draft

Ottawa Citizen

24-06-2025

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Sherwood Park's Braeden Cootes will be sitting in the seats at the Peacock Theatre in downtown Los Angeles Friday night as the first round of the NHL draft unfolds, in a nice suit but really wanting to put on a jersey.
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The 18-year-old dog-on-a-bone Seattle Thunderbirds right-shot centre, who was the Western Hockey League's youngest captain when he got the C on his No. 86 junior sweater last year, is going somewhere in the middle of the first 32 picks. He doesn't know where exactly, but 27 teams interviewed him at the NHL Combine in Buffalo earlier this month, in a hectic week where Cootes missed his high-school graduation but forsook the party for other things.
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Again, he's not sure what team will call his name at the NHL's decentralized draft with team personnel, except for a designated rep, back in their home cities. But, that's fine with him, the uncertainty of it all, sitting in the seats with mom Julie, a nurse, and dad Rob, an insurance broker, and his family and billet from Seattle..
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'Kind of cool to be sitting there and at any time your name can get called.'
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It won't be his hometown Oilers.
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'No, I didn't have a meeting with them,' said Cootes.
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'It was a little bit disappointing (hometown team) but I kind of knew ahead of time.'
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The interviews at the Combine can get repetitive, lots of the same questions, and trying to keep track of what teams you've talked to can sometimes be tricky. But, there are benefits.
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'I got to talk to (Detroit GM) Steve Yzerman, that was pretty cool. Rick Nash with Columbus, Jason Spezza with Pittsburgh. Guys you've watched as players growing up,' said Cootes, who was in top 10 in Combine results in bench-press, pull-ups and fitness index.
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But the Oilers took a pass, just because. They don't have a first-round pick or a second, but love Cootes' game. They will be envious spectators when a team picks Cootes, the captain of Canada's gold medal winning U18 world championship team this past spring at the international tournament in suburban Dallas.
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Cootes, who had 12 points in seven games at the tournament was a teammate of Oil Kings' defencememan Blake Fiddler, who is also going in the first round, maybe a little later than Cootes.
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That's the ultimate complement, of course. It's something easily translatable to the NHL. His WHL numbers right now don't scream elite (63 points this past season), compared to other centres in the draft, but Seattle was far from deep in support offensive help. Maybe he's an NHL third-line centre, not a top 6, but he will play because NHL teams love what he has and what he is.