Tag Archives: Kailer Yamamoto

It’s been an endless hockey summer for NHL prospects Yamamoto and Robertson

25 Tuesday Jul 2017

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Kailer Yamamoto and Jason Robertson have barely had time to take their skates off.

It’s been an endless hockey summer for the two high-scoring major junior forwards and other players chosen in the 2017 National Hockey League Draft in June.

Yamamoto, a right wing for the Spokane Chiefs of the Western Hockey League, headed to Alberta, Canada, for the Edmonton Oilers development camp days after the team selected him in the first round with the 22nd overall pick in the draft.

A long hockey season for Edmonton Oilers 2017 first-round draft pick Kailer Yamamoto included playing in a prospects game last September (Photo/Len Redkoles/USA Hockey).

The 18-year-old Spokane native stayed in Oil Country afterwards for additional training on and off the ice on his own time.

“No days off,” Yamamoto told me recently.

Ditto for Roberston,  a left wing for the Ontario Hockey League’s Kingston Frontenacs.  The Michigan resident shipped off to Texas for the Dallas Stars’ development camp after the team took him in the draft’s second round with the 39th overall pick.

“It’s been a pretty busy summer,” he said.

And it’s about to get busier beginning Friday, and both players couldn’t be happier. They will be among 42 American players invited to participate in the 2017 World Junior Summer Showcase at USA Hockey Arena in Plymouth, Michigan.

The showcase, which runs July 28-Aug. 5, is an audition for roster spots for Team USA for the 2018 International Ice Hockey Federation World Junior Championship in Buffalo, New York, from Dec. 26, 2017 to Jan. 5 2018.

This edition of the World Juniors will have an exciting wrinkle – an outdoor game between the U.S. and Canada on Dec. 29 at 71,608-seat New Era Stadium, home of the National Football League’s Buffalo Bills.

“It would mean so much to me” to make the U.S. squad, Yamamoto told me. “Any time you can put on the crest of your country, it means the world.”

Yamamoto has represented the United States four times, playing in Under-17 tournaments in 2014-15, the Under-18 World Junior Championship in 2015-16, and the Ivan Hlinka Under-18 Memorial Cup tournament in 2015-16.

Kingston Frontenacs forward Jason Robertson, a 2017 Dallas Stars second-round draft pick, hopes to play for the U.S. at 2018 IIHF World Juniors (Photo/Aaron Bell/OHL Images).

Robertson, 18, has never played for the U.S. in an international tournament. He’s hoping that he does well enough at the showcase in Plymouth to punch his ticket to Buffalo.

“That would be super-exciting,” he told me. “It’s a great tournament. It would be a huge honor to play for the U.S.A., I hope I do. It’s up to me to perform the best I can in camp.”

That’s the mantra Robertson and Yamamoto followed during their development camps earlier this month.

After getting a long look at his game at camp, the Stars’ coaching staff acknowledged that Robertson is the skilled goal-scorer they thought he was when they drafted him, the player said.

Of course, his team-leading 42 goals and 39 assists in 68 OHL regular season games and 5 goals and 13 assists in 11 playoff games were pretty good clues before the Stars made the pick.

But the 6-foot-2, 194-pound Robertson did leave Texas with a message from the Stars: Get stronger.

Forward Jason Robertson will be wearing another prospects jersey as he participates in USA Hockey’s 2017 World Junior Summer Showcase (Photo/Len Redkoles/USA Hockey).

“The Number One thing I can improve on is my strength overall,” said Robertson, whose mother was born in the Philippines. “They even expressed that the skating is not a really big issue. They believe that developing more as a man off the ice and in the gym – and putting that time off ice into my strength – will really help my career.”

The Oilers also would like to see the 5-foot-8, 140-pound Yamamoto add some more muscle to his frame.

Yamamoto’s height and weight haven’t hurt in the WHL, where he was sixth in the league and tops on the Chiefs in scoring last season with 42 goals and 57 assists in 65 games.

But if he’s going to someday survive the rigors of an 82-game NHL season and the physical abuse from bigger defenders, it’s going to require a bit more meat on the bones.

“Get bigger, stronger, definitely put on the extra pounds,” said Yamamoto, whose grandfather lived in a U.S. Japanese internment camp during World War II. “They (Oilers) said ‘Keep working, we’re really looking forward to seeing you up in camp. Make sure you’re prepared and ready to go.'”

“Ready to go” means in September, just a few weeks after the World Junior showcase. Yamamoto will head back to Western Canada to report to Oilers training camp. Robertson will go to Traverse City, Michigan, for the 2017 NHL Prospect Tournament.

That event will feature up-and-coming young players from the Stars, Detroit Red Wings, Carolina Hurricanes, Chicago Blackhawks, New York Rangers, Minnesota Wild, Columbus Blue Jackets and St. Louis Blues.

“Most people would be tired and need rest,” Robertson said of his hectic summer of hockey. “But I love it. I love having something to do, especially if it’s related to hockey.”

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Three players of color chosen in first round of 2017 NHL Draft

24 Saturday Jun 2017

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CHICAGO – Three players of color took center stage at the 2017 National Hockey League Draft at Chicago’s United Center Friday night.

Two major junior hockey players of Asian heritage and a black French-Canadian player were chosen in the first round of the 31-team draft. And Ryan Reaves, a pugnacious veteran forward, was traded by the St. Louis Blues to the Pittsburgh Penguins, a move that capped the first day of the draft.

Thirteen proved to be a lucky number for Nick Suzuki, a forward for the Owen Sound Attack of the Ontario Hockey League. He was taken with the 13th pick in the draft by the expansion Vegas Golden Knights.

Nick Suzuki of the OHL’s Owen Sound Attack hopes to be Vegas-bound after being drafted in the first round by the Golden Knights (Photo/Terry Wilson/OHL Images).

“It’s not every day you get picked by an expansion team,” Suzuki said after he had his named called  and donned the fledgling Golden Knights’ jersey. “I’m really happy about being picked by Vegas and I want to get there pretty  quick and see the new building.”

Suzuki was ranked as the 10th-best North American skater by NHL Central Scouting. The 5-foot-10 native of London, Ontario, was Owen Sound’s second-leading scorer last season with 45 goals and 51 assists in 65 games.

 

His younger brother, forward Ryan Suzuki, was the first player chosen in the 2017 Ontario Hockey League Priority Selection Draft in April, plucked by the Barrie Colts.

Nick Suzuki said he has no worries about joining a new NHL team that’s bound to have more losses than wins in its first few seasons.

“I don’t think I’m nervous,” he said. “I’m more excited to see what Vegas is like. I don’t know if there’s pressure. I kind of just take it as a new team and you have to show them that you’re a good player.”

Kailer Yamamoto is looking forward to someday playing with Edmonton Oilers snipers Connor McDavid  and Leon Draisaitl  after Edmonton selected Yamamoto, a forward with the Western Hockey League’s Spokane Chiefs, with the 22nd pick of the draft.

“I’m really looking forward to going to that skill team,” Yamamoto said. “I think it’s going to definitely benefit my game.”

The 5-foot-7, 140-pound  right wing was listed as the 17th-best North American skater by Central Scouting.

Spokane Chiefs’ Kailer Yamamoto hopes to prove that size doesn’t matter after the Edmonton Oilers chose the 5-foot-7 forward in the first round of the NHL Draft (Photo/Larry Brunt/Spokane Chiefs).

A Spokane native of Japanese and Hawaiian heritage, Yamamoto led the Chiefs in scoring in 2016-17 with 42 goals and 47 assists in 65 games. His older brother, Keanu, was Spokane’s fourth-leading scorer last season with 26 goals and 43 assists in 72 games.

 

“My dad’s dad, he’s from Japan actually, he was in the internment camps,” Kailer Yamamoto said. “My dad’s half Japanese so that makes me a quarter Japanese. It’s unbelievable to be Japanese, get the Japanese heritage, and hopefully be in the NHL someday.”

Right after Yamamoto had his name called, defenseman Pierre-Olivier Joseph was chosen with the 23nd pick of the draft by the Arizona Coyotes.

Joseph patrolled the blue line last season for the Charlottetown Islanders of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League, where he had 6 goals and 33 assists in 62 games.

Joseph wasn’t a stranger to the spectacle and hype of draft day. He watched his older brother, forward Mathieu Joseph of the QMJHL’s Saint John Sea Dogs, get drafted by the Tampa Bay Lightning in the fourth round in 2015.

Still, the younger Joseph – who was ranked as the 27th-best North American skater eligible for the draft by Central Scouting – admitted to having a case of the jitters on Friday.

“Obviously, I didn’t want to think about the draft,” he said. “I played cards and watched movies as the day goes on, but as I sat in the stands and watched the names go by, I was thinking whether I’d get called or not.”

He credited his older brother and his parents for helping him achieve his draft day moment.

“I was a bit of an underdog,” Joseph said. “Obviously, I had my brother and my family to push me. Everyone has been there for me to push me and make me the player I am now.”

Thanks to Evan Moore for contributing to this report.

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