Of the three youngsters who made it onto the Seattle Kraken’s 23-man roster out of training camp, Ryan Winterton had by far the least fanfare. But in the Kraken’s opening-night 3-1 victory over the Anaheim Ducks, Winterton had by far the biggest impact.
Highly-touted teenager Berkly Catton has been a healthy scratch for the first two games of the new season. Finnish forward Jani Nyman, who impressed in his first 12 NHL games with Seattle last season, played a team-low 7:52 against Anaheim and 8:37 in game two against Vegas. In hockey-speak, that spare usage is referred to as “sheltered minutes,” an attempt to keep a young player from being overmatched.
Asked why Nyman was essentially stapled to the bench for the second half of the Ducks game, Kraken coach Lane Lambert would say only, “You make decisions for the now and we move forward from there. We were in a position where we shortened the bench a little bit to get the matchups we needed.”
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Winterton, by contrast, skated 12:02 against the Ducks, including on special teams, and had as many shifts (20) as Eeli Tolvanen and Shane Wright. Time and again he would disrupt a Ducks scoring chance with a backcheck or a block. He made a diving clear on a penalty kill, and in the 3rd period, freed himself for a grade-A scoring chance. Credited with five hits, only Tolvanen (with six) had more for Seattle.
The 6-2, 175 pound forward, who turned 22 in September, has seen spot duty with Seattle since being a 3rd round draft pick in 2021. Never in his previous 21 games – nine in 2023-24, 12 last season – had he made as large a contribution. “He did a lot of things well that maybe you don’t necessarily see on the score sheet,” Lambert noted about Winterton’s unglamourous assignments. “In the role he’s playing in, he did a great job.”
Winterton suffered a couple of hiccups in Saturday’s 2-1 overtime victory against the Golden Knights. His 3rd period tripping penalty led to a Vegas power play goal that tied the game. Late in regulation, he turned the puck over, but defenseman Adam Larsson bailed him out with a block of Mark Stone’s high-danger chance.
None of this diminished Lambert’s confidence in Winterton. He played a personal NHL-high 15:49. On more than one occasion, he was able to elude an attempted Golden Knights double-team.
Winterton has been a mainstay for the Kraken’s AHL farm team in Coachella Valley, scoring 40 goals in 114 games over the past two seasons. I suggested to coach Lambert that Winterton was trying to make it hard for the Kraken to send him back to the Firebirds this season. “And he’s doing a really good job of it,” Lambert said in response. “He’s got speed, his detail is good. I think he certainly adds something to the line that he plays on.”