Ron Francis thinks Shane Wright is capable of spending the entire year in Seattle
It appears that the pre-season performances of 2022 fourth overall pick Shane Wright have won over his General Manager, Ron Francis.
In an interview with Pierre LeBrun of The Athletic on Wednesday, Francis said that he believes Shane Wright will spend the entire 2022-23 season with the Kraken.
So far in the pre-season, Wright has appeared in four games, tallying one assist and eight shots on goal. Seattle has one pre-season game left before they open the season in Anaheim on October 12th. At the very least, Wright will start the season with the Kraken and the coaching staff and management will evaluate where he's at before deciding to keep him in Seattle or send him back to Kingston in the OHL.
"There's a lot of progression in front of him. But I'm really pleased with what we see. He thinks the game well. He sees the game at a high level. His hands are extremely quick. He sees the right play."
Wright, 18, was projected to go first overall in July's draft, but was surpassed by Juraj Slafkovsky (Montreal), Simon Nemec (New Jersey) and Logan Cooley (Arizona) who went 1, 2 and 3 respectively. The Burlington (Ontario) native wasn't too happy to drop down to fourth overall, believing that he should have gone higher, but he will now form a solid 1-2 punch down the middle with 19-year-old Matty Beniers, for a long-time to come.
Kraken GM thinks Wright will play whole season in Seattle https://t.co/HEq2TrkSqV pic.twitter.com/IHFmi63mVu— theScore NHL (@theScoreNHL) October 5, 2022
| G | A | PTS | ||
| Frank Nazar | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Teuvo Teravainen | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Tyler Bertuzzi | - | 2 | 2 | |
| A.J. Greer | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Carter Verhaeghe | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Gustav Forsling | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Jonah Gadjovich | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Mackie Samoskevich | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Connor Bedard | - | - | - | |
| Sam Bennett | - | - | - | |
| Sergei Bobrovsky | - | - | - | |
| Jesper Boqvist | - | - | - | |
| Andre Burakovsky | - | - | - | |
| Colton Dach | - | - | - | |
| Ethan Del Mastro | - | - | - | |
| Jason Dickinson | - | - | - | |
| Ryan Donato | - | - | - | |
| Aaron Ekblad | - | - | - | |
| Nick Foligno | - | - | - | |
| Ryan Greene | - | - | - | |
| Complete stats | ||||
| STANDINGS 2024-2025 | ||||||
TOP 10 | GP | W | L | OL | PTS | |
Jets | 82 | 56 | 22 | 4 | 116 | |
Capitals | 82 | 51 | 22 | 9 | 111 | |
Golden Knights | 82 | 50 | 22 | 10 | 110 | |
Maple Leafs | 82 | 52 | 26 | 4 | 108 | |
Stars | 82 | 50 | 26 | 6 | 106 | |
Kings | 82 | 48 | 25 | 9 | 105 | |
Avalanche | 82 | 49 | 29 | 4 | 102 | |
Lightning | 82 | 47 | 27 | 8 | 102 | |
Oilers | 82 | 48 | 29 | 5 | 101 | |
Hurricanes | 82 | 47 | 30 | 5 | 99 | |
| Conference | Cumulative | ||||||