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.
"I don't want to draw a line in the sand, but I would think he's with us for the year," Francis told The Athletic's Pierre LeBrun. "It's just a matter of how things go and managing it. But I think he'll be fine. He's fit right in. He does a lot of good things."
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.
"Him coming to us in Seattle is going to be good for him," Francis said. "It will give him time to develop and mature as a player; get stronger. He's still only 18 years old.
"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.
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