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Yahoo
22-05-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
OHL Heavily Represented in Craig Button's Recent Mock Draft
The 2025 NHL Draft is just around the corner, and many pundits are starting to project what the first round will look like. Craig Buttons' recent mock draft projects the OHL to be well represented in the opening round of the 2025 NHL Draft. Historically, the OHL has always featured prominently in the opening round of NHL Drafts. Last season, nine of the players picked in round one played for OHL teams, meaning the league claimed 28 percent of the players picked. That was the highest percentage for any individual league. Based on Buttons' projections, the OHL could receive an even larger share of this year's first-round picks. Picks 1-5 1. New York Islanders - Matthew Schaefer2. San Jose Sharks - Porter Martone 3. Chicago Blackhawks - Michael Misa4. Utah Mammoth - James Hagens 5. Nashville Predators - Jake O'Brien According to this mock draft four of the opening five picks could be OHL players. While Schaefer going first feels like a no brainer based on every projection seen since January, some people are asking whether the Islanders might take James Hagens instead seeing as he is a Long Island native. Porter Martone going second is a bit of a surprise given that he has slipped down prospect lists in the second half of the season. The Steelheads forward fell from fourth to sixth in NHL Central Scouting's latest rankings. Jake O'Brien has risen up draft boards in the second half of the year. He jumped up from eighth to fourth on NHL Central Scouting's rankings. Seeing him go fifth to Nashville would round out a dominant showing for the OHL in the first five picks. The London Knights Hang On To Win OHL Championship For the second time since 2010, the London Knights are the winners of back-to-back OHL Championships. The Knights took game five of the OHL Final to hoist the J. Ross Robertson Cup on home ice. Picks 6-10 6. Philadelphia Flyers - Brady Martin7. Boston Bruins - Caleb Desnoyers8. Seattle Kraken - Anton Frondell9. Buffalo Sabres - Radim Mrtka10. Anaheim Ducks - Lynden Lakovic After dominating the top five picks, Button projects just Brady Martin being taken in this segment of the first round. Martin is a riser when it comes to prospect rankings having moved from 17th to 11th on NHL Central Scouting's rankings. His dominant performance at the U-18 Men's Championship will only have served to boost his stock higher. In seven games at the tournament he scored three goals and added eight assists while looking like a man playing amongst boys. As a side note, when it comes to recent history, the Flyers have tended towards OHL players when they have a first round pick. Since 2020, they've drafted an OHL player three times in the first round. In 2021 they did not have a first-round pick and in 2022 they selected Cutter Gauthier of the USNDTP. 2025 NHL Draft Profile: Jacob Cloutier With the OHL season finished, and the London Knights crowned champions for the second consecutive season, many OHL fans are turning their attention towards the NHL Draft in June. Questions abound about where certain players will be picked and who will rise or fall on draft boards. Picks 11-16 11. Pittsburgh Penguins - Roger McQueen12. New York Rangers - Kashawn Aitcheson 13. Detroit Red Wings - Victor Englund14. Columbus Blue Jackets - Jackson Smith 15. Vancouver Canucks - Cole Reschny16. Montreal Canadiens - Justin CarbonneauAgain, the OHL becomes somewhat sparse in this segment of Buttons' mock draft, with just one pick predicted to come from the league. Kashawn Aitcheson is a hard-nosed defender who is gifted on both sides of the puck. He also rose up NHL Central Scouting's rankings, going from 15th to ninth. It is possible we could see players like Malcolm Spence, Henry Brzustewicz and Jack Nesbitt creep into these picks as well. There is a fair amount of disagreement between pundits on this segment of the draft. Based on Buttons' draft, six OHL players project to be picked in the first half of the draft. If the percentages pan out, that would mean a total of 12 OHL players get picked in the first round, which would be a 33 percent increase from last year. This does seem a bit far-fetched, though. It seems much more likely that by the end of round one, the OHL will have around 10 players taken. What is clear is that the OHL is very well represented at the top of this year's draft class, with pundits predicting a large number of OHL players being taken in the first 10 picks of the 2025 NHL Draft. As always, the draft is unpredictable, and while it is fun to look at mock drafts and projections, we will never know how the chips will fall until teams start making picks. The 2025 NHL Draft will take place on Friday, June 27th at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles.
Yahoo
19-05-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Kristian Epperson Commits To Denver
Saginaw Spirit forward Kristian Epperson has committed to Denver, it was announced on Saturday. A native of Mequon, Wisc., Epperson scored 27 goals and recorded 53 assists in his lone OHL season with the Spirit. Epperson is eligible for the 2025 NHL Entry Draft and is ranked as the 47th best North American skater in NHL Central Scouting's final draft rankings. A 2006-born skater, Epperson will make the jump to the NCAA and join the Pioneers for the 2025-26 season. Make sure you bookmark The Hockey News' NCAA Page for the latest news, exclusive interviews, breakdowns and so much more.
Forbes
04-05-2025
- Sport
- Forbes
Jack Ivankovic Backstops Canada To Gold At Hockey's 2025 U18 Worlds
Canada's Jack Ivankovic is a top goaltending prospect for the 2025 NHL draft. (Photo by Minas ...) Don't tell Jack Ivankovic that he's too small to succeed as a top-level goaltender. On Saturday, the 17-year-old won his second-straight gold medal at the 2025 IIHF world under-18 men's championship. He made 28 saves against Sweden, which had been the highest-scoring team in the tournament heading into the gold-medal game. When the same two sides met in pre-tournament action on Apr. 21, Ivankovic allowed six goals on 20 shots over two periods in an 8-3 win for the Swedes. Once the tournament began in Allen and Frisco, Texas, Ivankovic allowed just six goals in the six games he played. He was named the tournament's top goaltender with a .961 save percentage and two shutouts — in Canada's 4-0 semi-final win over Slovakia and in the gold-medal game. The Canadians' biggest challenge in the tournament came in their quarter-final matchup against Czechia. That went to overtime, tied 2-2, before Cole Reschny scored the game-winner at 2:41 of the sudden-death extra frame. The U18 tournament features players born in 2007 or later, and is the last international showcase for top prospects before the NHL Draft. The 2025 edition will take place in Los Angeles on June 27-28. Ivankovic will be one of the players waiting to hear his name called at the Peacock Theatre — and his performance in Texas may raise his draft stock. He sits fourth among North American goaltenders in the final 2025 draft rankings by NHL Central Scouting. That's due to a decent-but-unspectacular regular season with the OHL's Brampton Steelheads, where he finished with a 25-12-5 record and .903 save percentage. Also, Ivankovic checks in at 5-foot-11 and 170 pounds. In NHL goaltending circles, bigger is almost always better. Dustin Wolf is expected to challenge for the Calder Trophy after a strong 2024-25 season with the ... More Calgary Flames. (Photo by Brett Holmes/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images) Recency bias might make teams more willing to flaunt the conventional wisdom in June, however. In 2019, Dustin Wolf checked in at 6-feet and 161 pounds when he was drafted 214th overall by the Calgary Flames — fourth-last in the entire draft. After working his way up the ranks and winning two goalie of the year awards in the American Hockey League, Wolf became a top candidate for the NHL's Calder Trophy as rookie of the year in 2024-25. At 23, Wolf put up a record of 29-16-8 with a .910 save percentage and 11.9 goals saved above expected, fueling an unexpected push for a playoff spot by the Flames which lasted until the second-last game of the season. Other Canadians who likely saw their draft stock rise by bringing home gold at U18s include forwards Brady Martin and Braeden Cootes. Martin, a fiery center with the OHL's Soo Greyhounds, finished with 11 points and was named to the tournament all-star team. He's currently ranked No. 11 among North American skaters by NHL Central Scouting. Cootes, who wore the C for Canada, finished with a team-leading 12 points. The Seattle Thunderbirds center in the WHL is ranked No. 20. But the player whose stock likely rose the most is Swedish left wing Filip Ekberg. After putting up 45 points in 53 games with the OHL's Ottawa 67's this season, Ekberg landed at No. 178 among North American skaters on Central Scouting's list — in the range where even getting drafted is far from guaranteed. But the cerebral 18-year-old flipped that narrative in Texas. He finished with a tournament-leading 18 points in seven games and earned MVP honors, as well as being named to the all-star team. Swedish defenseman Sascha Boumedienne also earned all-star honors. He finished second in tournament scoring with 14 points. The 18-year-old, who went to the 2025 Frozen Four final as a freshman with Boston University last month, sits at No. 18 among North American skaters on the Central Scouting list. The 2024-25 schedule has now concluded for draft-eligible players in Europe and in the NCAA, but playoffs continue in the North American league play. In the USHL, the best-of-five Clark Cup final between the Muskegon Lumberjacks and the Waterloo Black Hawks begins on Friday, May 9. In the Canadian Hockey League, the WHL Final will see Gavin McKenna and the Medicine Hat Tigers take on the Spokane Chiefs, while the London Knights and Oshawa General square off in the OHL. In the QMJHL, the Moncton Wildcats await the winner of the semi-final series between the Rimouski Oceanic and Shawinigan Cataracte. Rimouski currently leads 3-2, with Game 6 set for Sunday at 4 p.m. ET. International play seems to agree with Jack Ivankovic. Last summer, he gave up three goals in four games for a .967 save percentage on his way to gold for Canada at the 2024 Hlinka Gretzky Cup. He was also on Canada's roster for its gold-medal win at U18s in Finland, though he didn't see any game action.
New York Times
04-05-2025
- Sport
- New York Times
2025 U18 Worlds standouts and disappointments: Martin, Stenberg impress, Frondell falls flat
After 29 games in 11 days in Texas, the 2025 IIHF U18 World Championship is over. I was in Frisco and Allen all tournament, splitting time between Comerica Center and Credit Union of Texas Event Center. Canada defeated Sweden in Saturday's final, winning their first-ever back-to-back golds at the event. And Switzerland was relegated for the first time in two decades, losing to a Norwegian program on the rise in recent years. At the end of the event, I had notes on nearly 100 of the top prospects in the 2025, 2026 and even 2027 draft classes. Here are my standouts and risers, and disappointments and fallers — as well as a couple of notables I had mixed feelings about. Where else to start but with Ekberg, who pulled away in the tournament scoring race and set Sweden's all-time single-tournament goals and points record. It felt like everything he touched ended up in the back of the net, and that every time he was on the ice, he was creating looks inside the offensive zone. Advertisement He's a fascinating story because he didn't have a great year in the OHL, registering 45 points in 53 games, and came into the tournament ranked 178th in North America by NHL Central Scouting as a 5-foot-9.75 winger. There are layers to the way his season went that haven't been fully contextualized, too, including that he was very ill when he first showed up in Ottawa and it lingered throughout the fall, impacting the full first half of his year while they tried to figure out what was ailing him. That, combined with playing on a bottom-of-the-standings Ottawa 67's team that struggled to score, and for a coach in Dave Cameron who I don't think got the most out of him when he was healthy, has likely made him a little underrated. He's still ultimately a small winger who's destined to be a mid-round pick, but the last two weeks were still a clear indication of his real talent. He found soft space in the slot. He showed a slick release. He can pick his spots in the net. His standup skating stride can look a little unconventional, but he's agile on cuts and can play with tempo. He finds his way around of ton of chances in the home plate area. He showed a quick catch and release and quick hands. I even liked how he won body positioning on the cycle. He was a driver of offence at both five-on-five and made his power-play unit the de facto go-to unit after it wasn't always that way this year. Awesome week for the kid — though his gold medal game was his first quiet one of the event. Stenberg continues to look like the second-best forward in next year's draft to me, and was a standout in most of Sweden's games. (He scored on a lucky bounce in the semifinals against USA, but I actually thought that and the final were his least impactful games after he was one of the best players on the ice in group play and the quarters.) He's very strong on pucks, protecting pucks and pushing through contact for a 5-foot-11 winger and drew a few penalties holding pucks along the cycle. He gets off the wall and wants to take inside ice. He's dangerous on the flank on the power play and likes the one-timer, but can also pick apart seams. He's got a multi-faceted shot. The puck comes off his stick extremely quickly and hard. He'll make effort plays. Pucks stick to him on first touch. He's got dynamic one-on-one skill with defenders and goalies. And despite being among the tournament scoring leaders, he hit a couple of posts and could have had more looks. He's going to be one of the first players picked in next year's draft. Advertisement Martin is one-of-one in this draft class, and that was never more evident than over the last couple of weeks in Texas. He rocked two or three players per game and was eventually ejected for interference in the first period of Canada's semifinal for what amounted to hitting a kid too hard after he'd made a pass. He's not a dirty player, but he only has one mode out there. His presence is felt in every game he plays in and he was great in the gold medal game. That is why Brady Martin is going to be a first round pick in the 2025 #NHLDraft! 😱 The @OHLHoundPower star has his second and 🇨🇦's fifth of the #U18MensWorlds final! — Canadian Hockey League (@CHLHockey) May 4, 2025 I thought he started the tournament a little slow offensively but as the event wore on he made some skill plays one-on-one, his skating looked quick and he did it within his established identity as a fearless forward who sticks with plays, is always in the thick of it, goes to the dirt areas and forces turnovers, willing plays into existence. Don't be surprised if he sniffs the top 10 in June. Verhoeff joined Team Canada late after his Victoria Royals lost to the Spokane Chiefs in the second round of the WHL playoffs. I thought he didn't have his best game in his debut against Finland and he was just fine in the gold medal game, but he was Canada's best defenseman as an underager in between. Outside of average skating (his feet can look a little heavy under his 6-foot-4 frame at times), he looks like the real deal in every other area of the game. He became a 25-minute guy for Canada, moved up the lineup, played in all situations and made some big plays, including a great play to set up the overtime winner against the Czechs in the quarterfinals. He's big, he's poised, he can play both ways, he's highly talented, he can make plays, he's got great instincts offensively and defensively, he likes to involve himself in the play offensively both on and off the puck inside the offensive zone and he's a summer birthday who is still 16 and has a ton of runway to get even better. He's got a real chance to go No. 2 next year and looks like a star prospect. The 5-foot-7 Mooney was USA's driver all tournament until he got injured and left early in the second period of the bronze medal game. I actually thought his least impactful game of the tournament was USA's semifinal loss to the Swedes and he still had points on all three American goals in the game. His line with 2026 forward Mikey Berchild and 2025 forward Jacob Kvasnicka (who I thought made a case to at least get picked and looked like he'll be a solid college player for Minnesota with his work ethic all tournament) was USA's best, too. Advertisement His smarts stood out on the puck. He put a ton of pucks into space for his linemates. He flowed with play beautifully and found ways to navigate around the ice with his cutbacks in control. His ability to spin on a dime and lose and separate from guys, both in open ice and even inside the offensive zone, popped very consistently. He made some magic happen, putting defenders in the spin cycle inside the offensive zone with his ability to slip and slide around them. He was a neutral zone machine, creating a ton of entries and finding holes in coverage to weave through, cutting into space/gaps so well. And maybe most impressively, he was a competitive driver as well, playing in the guts of the ice and laying a few of the biggest non-Brady Martin hits of the tournament, tagging guys such as Anton Frondell and Ivar Stenberg. He was going to the net. He was winning battles along the wall. It was a very impressive week after an up-and-down season. I thought he outplayed the other two top little guys, Adam Benak and Cameron Schmidt, pretty clearly. When he went down, USA looked like a completely different team. Team USA outscored the opposition 12-2 with Mooney on the ice in the tournament at five-on-five and he was my final cut for my tournament all-star team ballot at forward (it was down to him and Martin). Bjorck got better as the tournament went on and played his best game in Sweden's semifinal against Team USA. I don't think he was quite the standout that the players ahead of him on this list were, but the top of the 2026 class stood out more in the event than the 2025s, and his skill level was a distinguisher at times. He will go outside to attack back inside with his agility and ability to carve into defenders' hands. He's strong for his size (he's listed at 5-foot-9 but he looked bigger than that to me) and will take pucks to the blue paint on D. He's got adjustable feet to slip away from sticks and turn away from coverage. He shakes his man so well and has high-end stick skill to combine with his cutting game to make guys miss (which he drew some penalties out of). He's got a quick first three steps and can accelerate around D from a standstill. He's also got a quick release. He was a go-to five-on-three penalty killer for them. He can turn over some pucks trying to be too cute at times, but he also showed a good stick on lifts to get pucks back and attack quickly out of it. This tournament had a weak crop of goaltenders, and that made Ivankovic look comparatively speaking like he was in a different class. He was outstanding yet again for Canada, building on his legacy with the Program of Excellence. He needed to remind people of that after getting lit up a couple of times by the Gens in the first-round of the OHL playoffs (though it should be noted that Oshawa also lit up Brantford and Barrie in the next two rounds), and after his numbers with Brampton were good but not great in the regular season. It's especially important for him to continue to show people that he's a top goalie because of his 5-foot-11 listing. I still think he's got it. His reads, anticipation and hockey sense are very high-end and those combined with impressive movement allow him to get to east-west plays and make big saves. He plays the puck extremely well and was an important part of Canada's breakout at times. And he battled in the net and held the line on scrambles and jam plays all week. There were extended stretches when Canada struggled at five-on-five against the Finns, the Czechs and even the Slovaks, and they don't even get to the gold medal game without a couple of big saves in overtime of the quarterfinals. Others I liked or I thought helped themselves: Frondell came mid-tournament from a championship celebration across seven time zones after helping Djurgarden to promotion into the SHL. He was going to be jet lagged and probably not at his best in the earlier games in the tournament. But with scouts from all of the top teams in attendance and him in the conversation at the top of the draft coming in after an up-and-down year that finished up with excellent HockeyAllsvenskan production in the regular season, he was a letdown. Advertisement They broke up their most successful line all year (Milton Gastrin between Ivar Stenberg and Viktor Klingsell) to put him with prominent linemates, but as the games went on, he wasn't used as a go-to player in offensive or defensive situations for the Swedes. His boots looked big and choppy at times. He couldn't generate offensive looks for himself. And while he still showed his strength, puck protection and willingness to play a team game and support pucks or pick up assignments, he didn't look like a surefire top-five talent, at least not in these viewings. And while they aren't the be-all and end-all of a year, there were other similar stretches (between some excellent ones where he looked like a stud) this year as well. I've seen enough that I still think he projects as an excellent 2C in the NHL, and he's got some definite fans, but he didn't have anywhere near the impact that James Hagens and Porter Martone, two players in his range, had at this event a full year ago. He was better early on in the final but still struggled to break through. Others I wanted to see more from: There has been a lot of conversation this year about who the second- and third-best D in this class are after Matthew Schaefer. Smith didn't make a convincing case for most of the tournament that he was one of them for me, but he played his best game in the gold medal game and scored a big goal. The @TCAmericans' Jackson Smith has his fourth of the #U18MensWorld! 🇨🇦 One of the top defenceman available in the 2025 #NHLDraft, Smith extends Canada's lead in the final to 3-0! — Canadian Hockey League (@CHLHockey) May 4, 2025 He played top minutes for Canada, skated some pucks in neutral ice and showed his good edges opening up. He can shoot it. He's still got a pro build, was productive for Tri-City and made some high-end plays this year. But there were also times on a blue line that was made up almost entirely of 2026s where Team Canada needed some of their 2025s to step up and I thought he, Alex Huang and Quinn Beauchesne all struggled in stretches and were outplayed certainly by 2026s Verhoeff and Carson Carels at times (and also Ryan Lin to a lesser degree). It's the IQ piece that my attention was drawn to on a number of occasions. He skated some pucks into trouble, turned some pucks over on outlets, took some bad routes and made some bad reads defensively, getting beat or making mistakes a little too often for my liking. He's got the tools, but his game needs to be more buttoned up. I think he's more of a teens guy than a 9-12 guy for me. There was some good and bad, but ultimately, I still have the questions I had coming in. Boumedienne broke the tournament's all-time D scoring record and played more minutes than any other player in the event. He was on my tournament all-star ballot. But picking the two D on the all-star team was also a challenge this year and Boumedienne had some real highs and lows. Advertisement He needs to move the puck a bit quicker at times. He doesn't always think his D-zone coverage and pick up his man that well. His execution isn't always clean and he seems to bobble and mishandle a lot of pucks. He turned over a bunch of pucks and got caught cheating and out of position a few times. But he's also a brilliant skater and 6-foot-2 and at this level that allows him to be a top player. He got first touch on pucks on the PK and cleared the zone well. He was jumping into the rush and deep into the offensive zone off the line. He looked to create and wanted to be a difference-maker. He got a lot of shots through from the point and was obviously involved in a lot of offence. He closed out plays in neutral ice. If he can just improve the speed at which he processes the play, he'll be an NHLer. But he's still learning the game in a lot of ways. (Top photo courtesy of Tim Austen / IIHF)
New York Times
24-04-2025
- Sport
- New York Times
Why Radim Mrtka is one of the 2025 NHL Draft's top — and most unique — prospects
FRISCO, Tex. — Bill La Forge's first impression of Radim Mrtka was a simple one. 'He's unbelievable,' the Seattle Thunderbirds general manager said to himself in early December, a couple of weeks after Mrtka left Czechia for the Pacific Northwest. '(He's) 6-foot-6, 215 pounds, moves very well, passes the puck well, shoots it well, defends better than I thought he would with his long reach, uses his stick very well. I'll be surprised if he doesn't climb into the top 10.' Advertisement Five months later, that first impression has proven to be the right one. After registering 35 points in 43 games on a low-scoring, bottom-of-the-standings Thunderbirds team following the move from Trinec's professional club, NHL Central Scouting ranked Mrtka fifth among all North American skaters and second among defensemen eligible for the 2025 NHL Draft when they released their final list. Despite missing 25 of Seattle's games in the WHL, he still led the team in scoring at season's end. And though he was a rookie and jumped right into the league after it was already underway, his 0.81 points per game still led all draft-eligible WHL defensemen. All of this at that aforementioned height (though NHL Central Scouting lists him a smidge lower than La Forge said at 6-foot-5.75 and 207 pounds, their listing still makes him one of the biggest players in the draft). On Wednesday, when Czechia opened the U18 worlds against the host Americans at Comerica Center in Frisco, Tex., Mrtka was their No. 1 defenseman there, too. On his first shift of the second period, he went end-to-end to score and tie the game 1-1. Radim Mrtka with a great individual effort. #U18MensWorlds #2025NHLDraft — Czech Prospects (@CZprospects) April 24, 2025 Throughout, multiple scouts in attendance commented on how much bigger, faster and stronger he was than his peers. By game's end, he'd led both teams in time on ice, logging 24:10 in a 4-2 loss where the Czechs led the Americans into the final minutes. 'He's big, he's physical, he's a two-way D who can handle the puck, he's got speed and he's very good defensively,' said Czech assistant coach Jaroslav Nedved, the team's D coach, postgame. 'He's got a long stick, he plays between the dots, he's good in corners and he's our top D. (And) his skating helps him a lot because if you're tall and you're heavy and you're not a good skater, you're not going to be good in transition up and down. He is, and it's a big advantage. For his size, he's a great skater.' Advertisement The sum of those things has increasingly made him a hot topic of conversation in this class. Earlier in the year, scouts debated who the second-best D prospect in the draft was after Matthew Schaefer. Now they might have their answer. La Forge first saw Mrtka play last season and was immediately drawn to how unique he was. After talking to his agent, CAA's Ales Volek, they knew he was going to start the year in Czechia's top pro league and decided to take a calculated risk and select him with the No. 71 pick in the second round of the CHL Import Draft, believing that it's a hard league for a 17-year-old defenseman and maybe, just maybe, they could circle back and get him. 'We didn't interfere with him at all until they called us and thought it might be a good opportunity,' La Forge said. 'It was kind of a long play but we were patient and it paid off for us. He's going to be special.' Mrtka said he wanted to start the season in Seattle, but because he was under contract with Trinec, he needed a reason to work on a release with the club so that he could go to the WHL. When they stopped playing him, he said he went to the club and said, 'Yeah, it's time.' He made his WHL debut at the end of November after traveling from Czechia, not skating for five days, taking the ice for one morning skate and jumping right into a game against the Victoria Royals. Seattle won the game 3-2 in a shootout. Mrtka played 28:13, tops on his new team, and was 'one of the best players on the ice and just controlled the game while he was out there,' according to Thunderbirds head coach Matt O'Dette. Though his English needed work when he first arrived (O'Dette said 'it's not great but it's not bad either'), the Thunderbirds also had a fellow Czech Matej Pekar (now also a teammate with the national team) as their other import player this year. Mrtka said Pekar proved helpful during his transition period. Advertisement 'I thought I was great at English but then I arrived there and it was just next level for me,' Mrtka said, shaking his head. '(Pekar) really helped me and it was great to have another Czech guy in Seattle.' They initially hoped to billet together but there wasn't space for him at Pekar's billet home, so Mrtka was placed elsewhere. Still, Pekar, who spent three years in Switzerland practicing his English before he went to Seattle, was able to help him translate around the rink in the early days. 'It's always good to have one guy who speaks your mother language and we've been friends for a long time. He helps me and I help him,' Pekar said. 'It's tough when sometimes you don't understand what all of the guys are asking you and you can't just talk with the boys all the time. If you have someone that can translate or understand a little better and it helps you literally every single day and before you know it you know everything they're asking you.' All told, O'Dette said, 'he's a really good kid who has fit in seamlessly with our team.' Nedved, a longtime coach and player in Czechia and the brother of former NHLer Petr Nedved, has also enjoyed working with him with the national team. 'He's very humble, he's good to work with, he listens, he asks and always wants to know deeper, he's very coachable, and he knows how to play. I really like working with him,' Nedved said. Looking back on his season now, Mrtka is happy with the move to Seattle and said he 'would like to come back' to the Thunderbirds next year, crediting them for the big minutes they gave him right away. He describes himself as a 'two-way player who wants to be everywhere.' Asked about his impressive skating ability for his size, he said he didn't always have it and he'd never really even worked on his skating until he made the move from his childhood team of Havlíčkův Brod to Třinec at 15. It was with Třinec, a much bigger club, that he first began working on skills training. Advertisement Some of it does come naturally, though — and from a background in soccer. He played soccer until he made that move at 15 and his club back home was too far away to continue to do both (he also didn't want to risk injury). On the ice, O'Dette said that background shows in both his skating and his poise. 'To say that he was a nice addition for us is putting it mildly,' O'Dette said. 'He's super smart and poised with the way he plays the game. He's very smooth getting around the ice and his poise with the puck is really, really good. I was about to say elite and I want to say elite but sooner than later it will be elite. For a guy that size that can move the way he can and see the ice and be able to move the puck, you don't see that very often.' Top photo: Brian Liesse / Seattle Thunderbirds
