After finishing as a point-a-game player as the captain for Team Canada’s World Junior Championship Gold Medal effort in Halifax, Nova Scotia at the start of the month, Seattle Kraken top prospect Shane Wright has settled into action in the Ontario Hockey League.
It’s not unusual in major junior hockey for title contenders in the OHL, Western Hockey League, and the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League to load up on talent ahead of the playoffs. That’s exactly what the Windsor Spitfires did by adding Wright to their roster on January 9th from the Kingston Frontenacs in exchange for two active players, seven priority draft selections and a low OHL draft pick.
The Spitfires, located just across the Detroit River from the NHL Red Wings, lead the OHL’s Western Conference with a record of 27-9-and-4 entering league action on Friday night. The goal being a league championship and the automatic bid to the Memorial Cup tournament that comes with it.
The Memorial Cup is the annual postseason round robin that pits the champions of the three major junior leagues against one another along with a host club. This year the Kamloops (BC) Blazers of the Western Hockey League will be hosting.
Kraken Prospect Stats
So far Wright has five goals and two assists in four games played for Windsor. That’s just about the scoring pace he was on in Kingston for a full season in 2021-’22, 94 points in 63 games, that led up to him being selected 4th-overall by the Kraken at the 2022 NHL Draft in Montreal.
This season, after Wright tallied a goal and an assist in eight NHL games in Seattle and four goals over five games in the American Hockey League during a two-week conditioning stint, the Kraken exercised their option to send Wright back to major juniors. Had he reached ten NHL games played, he would have been deemed ineligible to go back.
The Covid pandemic played a part in all of this. Wright missed an entire season of play and development when the 2020-’21 OHL season was cancelled. The Kraken will monitor his play for the remainder of the 68-game regular season schedule and then on into the playoffs.
The Spitfires were off Friday night. They play at the Barrie Colts on Saturday, about 45 minutes north of Toronto, and then a little bit east of there on Sunday against the Oshawa Generals.
