The Kraken have used six first-round selections since entering the NHL in 2021, and the list already shows two different tracks: players who are producing in the NHL and prospects still working toward that level. Matty Beniers remains the benchmark, while Eduard Sale and Jake O’Brien have not yet made their NHL debuts.
Matty Beniers sets the standard
Beniers was the first draft selection in Kraken history, going second overall in the 2021 NHL Draft. He won the 2022-23 Calder Trophy, led all first-year players with 57 points in his rookie season, and has built a body of work that is hard to miss: 331 games, 82 goals and 114 assists.
Last season, he played all 82 games and finished with 20 goals and 30 assists. That kind of availability gives the Kraken a clear measuring stick for the rest of the draft class, because it shows what a top pick can look like once he moves from projection to a full-time NHL role.
Shane Wright and Berkly Catton
Shane Wright came next, selected fourth overall in 2022, and he has already pushed his own line forward with 169 games for the Kraken, 36 goals and 42 assists. He also played 74 games last season and posted 12 goals and 15 assists, giving Seattle another first-rounder with a growing NHL sample.
Berkly Catton arrived in 2024 as the eighth overall pick and signed his entry-level contract on July 5, 2024. He has already reached 66 games for the Kraken in 2025-26, with seven goals and 10 assists, which puts his development on a different timetable than the two players ahead of him in this group.
Eduard Sale and Jake O'Brien
Sale was taken 20th in the 2023 NHL Draft, and his path has stayed in development leagues so far. He played 24 games for the Kitchener Rangers in 2023-24 and recorded 18 points, then followed with 51 games for the Coachella Valley Firebirds in 2024-25 and 58 games for the Coachella Valley Firebirds last season, finishing those two AHL seasons with 21 points and 27 points.
O’Brien joined the group as the eighth overall pick in 2025, signed his entry-level contract on July 3, and produced 28 goals and 65 assists in 53 games for the Brantford Bulldogs last season. He has not made his NHL debut yet, which leaves the Kraken with a first-round ledger that now mixes established NHL production with two recent picks still on the way up.
A separate Kraken trade note and an offer-sheet standoff sit alongside that draft history, but the clearest question remains the one raised by the board itself: how many of these six first-round swings are already paying off, and how many are still waiting for their first NHL shift?
