In the end, the wait was a short one. The Seattle Kraken held the second overall selection in the 2021 NHL Entry Draft and made Matty Beniers the first player ever chosen by that expansion franchise.
“There’s so many words I could use to describe it,” Beniers said after he donned the cap of his, and the NHL’s, newest team. “Surreal. It’s honestly amazing, unbelievably excited, thankful. I could not be happier and I’m honestly at a loss for words thinking about what just happened.”
The journey to that early pick, however, comprised most of the Hingham, Mass., native’s life. If the NHL draft represented the latest chapter of a year in Beniers’ hockey life, then the final sentence was punctuated with an exclamation point.
Originally slated to attend Harvard last fall, the COVID-19 pandemic prompted the Ivy League to cancel its season, and that opened the door for him to switch his commitment to the University of Michigan. Instead he donned the Maize and Blue, where he became part of NHL history with four out of five Wolverines chosen in the top five picks. Now that the draft is behind him, Beniers can truly focus on what comes next.
“For me, it’s continuing to get bigger and stronger,” said the 6-foot-2, 180-pound center. “I think that’s what I focused on a lot this year at Michigan, along with trying to score goals and playing my two-way game. I’m not sure how far out I am (from the NHL), but I think I’m pretty close, so just keep working hard and I’ll be there soon enough.”
One of the things that always has separated Beniers from the vast majority of his peers is how mature and refined his two-way game is and has always been. Where younger players with the kind of talent he’s always possessed focus on scoring, he always distinguished himself with his hard competitive drive in all three zones and playing the game the right way.
“He’s such a great character kid. He’s a winner,” said Seattle general manager Ron Francis, who knows about winning as a Hall of Fame player, including with the Hartford Whalers, and two-time Stanley Cup champion with the Pittsburgh Penguins. “He takes on every challenge head on, and with the way he competes each and every day, the way he skates, his skill-set, we just felt he was a perfect fit to start our franchise out and set the tone of what we want to build here and establish our culture. We think he’s got huge upside, and we’re working to help him attain that in the next few years.”
It was a whirlwind season for Beniers, to be sure. He was a point-per-game player (10 goals, 24 points) in Ann Arbor as a young freshman who didn’t turn 18 until November. By January, he was skating around the Edmonton ice with the IIHF’s World Junior Championship trophy as a member of Team USA’s Under-20 gold medal-winning squad. For an international encore, he played against men at the IIHF World Championship tournament in Latvia, where he and his mates took home a bronze medal.
“It was a lot of pace at different levels,” Beniers said when asked about his experiences in hockey this season and how it helped him to be the second player selected. “At Michigan the pace was faster, then going to world juniors you get a faster pace, then going to men’s worlds, even faster. At every level there’s different things, and for me, it was seeing where I fit when I was at each level. I think with each it was good for my confidence and gave me a feel for where I was at and how far away I might be from playing in the NHL.”
That’s a lot to pack into just one year of play, but it speaks to the kind of versatile and impact performer Beniers has become since his prep hockey days at Milton Academy, followed by two years in Michigan with the U.S. National Team Development Program. Even though he should have been in Cambridge this past year, going to Ann Arbor for college was an easy transition for Beniers to make, and he wasted little time establishing himself as an impact player in the Big Ten Conference.
Whether that means that Beniers will return to Michigan for one more season or he goes right in with the NHL’s 32nd club this fall, that remains to be seen. Even if he does go back to school, it’s hard to envision a scenario where he would not then immediately turn pro and be skating around NHL ice in a Kraken jersey next spring when his NCAA season concludes.
“We’ll have that discussion with him,” Francis said. “It’s certainly a big jump from any league to the National Hockey League, but we’ll have that conversation with him. We certainly feel that with the way he skates and how hard he competes each and every night that he certainly would have a possibility of making our lineup in the fall.”
Beniers, for his part, made it clear after he was selected that he is open to either option. But if you listened closely to his answer when pressed about what comes next, there is some unfinished business on the rising sophomore’s plate.
“I would be really excited to go and play for the Kraken,” he said. “But I think going back (to Michigan) another year, keep building the confidence … I think the big thing is not having a real year last year, not playing a full schedule, getting kicked out of the national championship, those are things … I want to have a real year. I want to try and make a run at the national championship.
“Obviously, if that’s not the best decision for my development and me as a hockey player, then so be it. But I think those are some perks and something I want to do. I think at the end of the day, what is the right thing for me to do as a hockey player and as a person?”
When the time comes for him to make that jump, Beniers will be ready. He won’t be going into a completely new situation, either. Earlier this spring, he got to know fellow Bay Stater Colin Blackwell (Lawrence, Mass.), formerly of the New York Rangers, who was selected by Seattle in the expansion draft.
“He’s a great guy,” Beniers said. “He’s a guy who mentored me over in Latvia at men’s worlds. He took me under his wing and I sat next to him in the locker room and showed me the ropes. He was awesome to me, so I’m really excited to get back on the ice with him.”
Joining Jack Eichel (North Chelmsford, Mass.) as the latest local player to go so early in the NHL draft was a fact not lost on Beniers. His selection was continued validation of the New England region as a top producer of hockey talent at every level.
“I love it here,” he said when asked about Massachusetts. “It’s been my home forever. It’s just a special place. You get a lot of hockey out here and I think it’s pretty cool that I can share that with my town (of Hingham), with my friends, and a lot of them could be here to be with me for this.”
Like Eichel, Beniers seems destined to be a productive and impactful NHL forward. Given his very good skating and skills, plus high-level intelligence and elite work ethic, the smart money says it won’t take him long to adjust to the challenges of the NHL and become a play driver for the Kraken. Growing up, he rooted for the Boston Bruins and modeled his playing style after Patrice Bergeron. Now, he has a new team and mission and could one day become a player similar to Bergeron in terms of his production and legacy.
“After being called, I was just ecstatic to be a part of the Kraken and a part of this organization now,” said Beniers. “Moving forward, for me it’s about building strength, building muscle, continuing to score goals. I think a big part of me moving to the next level is getting bigger. There are a lot of bigger, stronger guys in the NHL. I’m more on the leaner side, but definitely getting there. I think it’s up to me and my family and Ron Francis and the Kraken to see what happens moving forward."
This feature appears in the July/August print edition of the New England Hockey Journal.
