Kraken's Catton Should Head Back To Juniors Shortly

Even with the Kraken suffering a rash of early season injuries and the kid seeing a decent amount of ice time, it doesn’t make a lot of sense for Seattle to burn a season off Berkly Catton’s three-year entry-level contract.

For that obvious reason, and the fact it doesn’t do the 2024 8th-overall NHL Draft pick any good to be playing seven minutes a night in the NHL, which he did against the Blackhawks, or sitting in the press box as a healthy scratch. Let the 19-year-old head back to Major Juniors, for now that would be with the Spokane Chiefs, and kick some ass in his overage season.

Yep, he’s been there done that, but there is no option under the current agreements with the different leagues to let Catton go to the American Hockey League for professional seasoning. It’s either juniors or the NHL, and it doesn’t make much sense to keep him around, unless of course Seattle management thinks he’s essential to making a playoff run.

He’s not.

He’s played eight NHL games with no goals and three assists. He can play one more before the Kraken HAVE to make a decision. If he reaches ten games, the club burns a year off his entry level, and that would make absolutely no sense.

Especially for a club that used the built-in rules to slide the start of Shane Wright’s entry-level deal back two full seasons. The 21-year-old is in just the second year of his initial contract now, after playing a full 2024-’25 season with the Kraken. That, after two sample NHL years of 8 games played, one that led to another year in juniors, and a second that led to a full year in the AHL.

One thing that has changed since then; a new Seattle general manager in Jason Botterill. He might argue differently.

Catton should take one more season — go win a World Junior Championship medal — before he’s around fulltime. Moving him back to the Western Hockey League seems logical, and even with the expanding NHL salary cap in coming years, the most sense economically. Seattle’s not-s0-distant neighbors in Spokane will be pleased as punch.