Danielson eager to experience draft

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This article was published 27/06/2023 (814 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Brandon Wheat Kings co-captain Nate Danielson can only imagine what it will feel like when his name is called at the National Hockey League draft in Nashville tonight.

The 18-year-old forward from Red Deer is widely expected to be selected in the first round of the draft, which continues Thursday with rounds two to seven.

“I think it will be super exciting and really a surreal moment for me and my family,” Danielson said. “When I was a kid, I never thought this would be a possibility, so now that it’s coming true, it’s really incredible. I’m really excited for it.”

Danielson has been tagged for big things since before the Wheat Kings selected him with the fifth pick in the 2019 draft. Brandon dealt the rights to Sean Comrie and the 10th overall pick, which originally belonged to the Victoria Royals and came to the Wheat Kings in the Tanner Kaspick trade in 2018, to the Kelowna Rockets to move up, and promptly grabbed the highly touted Danielson.

He made Canada’s 2020 entry into the Youth Olympics, an event that this year showcased 2004-born players.

The Red Deer product had two goals and an assist in four games at the event in Lausanne, Switzerland to finish fourth in team scoring in the six-country event. Canada earned bronze with a 4-2 victory over Finland on Jan. 22, 2020, with Danielson scoring a goal to make it 2-0.

The right-handed shot debuted in the Western Hockey League in the 2021 East Division hub in Regina, quickly carving out a role for himself as he contributed three goals and 12 assists in 24 games as a 16-year-old rookie.

“Coming in at 16, obviously it’s a pretty new thing, bigger, faster stronger,” Danielson said. “I think I’ve had some great people to play with and learn from, going back to my 156-year-old year, having Schneids (Braden Schneider), and Ben McCartney and Ridly (Greig) and Vinny for two years. They’ve done a lot to help me with building confidence and as time went along, I’ve gotten more confident and that’s helped me get better and better.”

The six-foot-one, 185-pound forward took a big step in his second season, producing 57 points on 23 goals and 34 assists in 53 games.

Danielson joined the leadership group as an alternate captain in his 17-year-old season, and shared the captaincy last season with Nolan Ritchie.

It was an unusual arrangement that worked pretty well, Danielson said.

“I think I’ve always been a leader since I was younger,” he said. “That’s a credit to my parents and how they raised me and brought me up. It’s who I am, and I just try to be myself and let things fall into place.

“Having Nolan made it a lot easier because I was able to share the responsibility with him. We’ve built a great friendship over the last couple of years so it was awesome to be able to do that with him and I really enjoyed it.”

Brandon general manager and head coach Marty Murray rejoined the organization last August, so the first chance Murray had to see Danielson in a game was in a pre-season matchup against the Moose Jaw Warriors on Sept. 16, 2022, when he scored twice.

“He had that wow factor,” Murray said. “I just appreciate what he brings to the table every day. He’s a quiet guy but he’s loved by his teammates and he leads by example. In the second half of the year he came out of his shell a little bit and took control of the room. That gives me comfort going into this season.

“He’s a guy, who as a coach, you want to tap his shoulder every time anything important is going on in the game. You can depend on him in all situations.”

Danielson had a terrific season personally — 33 goals and 45 assists — but the bigger number may have been the number of games he played, which was all 68.

As a 17-year-old, Danielson was knocked out of the lineup twice, with the first coming in Red Deer on Oct. 23 on a hit by Jace Weir that earned the Rebels defenceman a cross-checking major, game misconduct and four-game suspension.

Danielson returned 19 days late on Nov. 11, and was fine until an awkward collision with Regina Pats defenceman Ryker Evans led him to crash hard into the end boards on March 2. Danielson was carried off the ice on a spine board and didn’t return until March 25.

He missed 15 games between the two injuries, and said the chance to play in every game in the 2022-23 season was meaningful to him.

“Injuries happen so it’s not really something you can control,” Danielson said. “That was sort of something I had an emphasis on, was trying to take care of my body better this year and make sure I stayed healthy. Stuff happens out there, it’s physical and people get hurt sometimes, but just doing the best I could to prevent those kinds of things was something that was good for me.

“I was happy to be in the lineup every night because that’s what you want to do.”

Unfortunately for Danielson and the Wheat Kings, they missed the playoffs by eight points. That colours how he views the year.

“First of all, you have to start with the team and that was disappointing,” Danielson said. “Coming into the year obviously the goal is to be a playoff team. That was the expectation for us so obviously that was very disappointing and something that we’ll learn from going into next year.

“Individually, I was pretty happy with how my season went. It got better as the year went on and overall I had a pretty successful year.”

While players often talk about trying to put the draft out of their mind, it isn’t always that easy. NHL scouts regularly speak to players after games, and Danielson became a familiar sight in the stands after he had taken off his equipment.

“I did a pretty good job,” Danielson said of not focusing on the draft. “There are teams that want to talk to you, and that’s part of it. It didn’t really affect me in how I thought about things. To me, it was just having conversations with different people.

“Really, they just want to get to know who you are and what you’re like. I didn’t really put much thought into it. I just tried to play hockey and let everything else fall into place.”

Danielson has a late birthday — he was born on Sept. 27 — so he missed the NHL’s Sept. 15 deadline to be selected alongside the rest of the class of 2004 a year ago. Instead, he will be picked as an 18-year-old, joining recent Wheat Kings stars such as Nolan Patrick, Braden Schneider and Vinny Iorio.

Murray said there are different parts of his game that could make him a good NHL player, noting he should also be in the running for a spot on the world junior team.

“I think he really transports the puck well,” Murray said. “He’s a long, tall right-handed centre who skates well and they aren’t easy to find. He carries the puck so well through the neutral zone. A lot of times he carries the puck on entry.

“If he has to start out in a third-line role in the NHL, he can do that, he can kill penalties, he can play in a lot of situations. That’s where being advertised as that 200-foot player is going to open a lot of doors for him.”

As a top prospect, Danielson was among the 106 players invited to the NHL Combine in Buffalo, N.Y., which is a mix of interviews by teams and physical testing.

“It was fun,” Danielson said. “It was pretty busy week with meetings and everything and getting to meet with the management of different teams. It was pretty cool to get to do that.

“And the fitness testing, some of that was pretty challenging.”

Danielson was pretty quiet when he attended his first Wheat Kings prospect camp at 14, and while he has gradually found his voice, he isn’t an especially outgoing person.

He did 23 team interviews at the Combine, admitting one of them was a little daunting because an NHL legend was in the room.

“Honestly it was pretty good,” Danielson said. “I was pretty nervous for the first one. We got to Buffalo on Sunday and I kind of had all day to think about that first meeting.

“The first one was with Colorado and they were all really good. Everyone was really nice. They didn’t want to be scary, they just wanted to get to know me and see my personality.

“Going into the one with Detroit was pretty intimidating too, having Steve Yzerman there. But I got used to it and it was pretty easy for the most part.”

Danielson was terrific in the physical testing, finishing seventh in long jump, sixth in the vertical jump, ninth in no-arm jump, fourth in squat jump, 10th in bench press and eighth in pull-ups.

In a way, Brandon missing the playoffs actually benefited Danielson. After taking some time off, he was able to hit the gym hard to prepare.

“I took advantage of the time training in the gym so it was nice to see some of that paying off,” Danielson said. Attending the Combine also gave him a chance to see one of his buddies in action.

Danielson is friends with the presumed top pick in the draft, Connor Bedard, and has watched from a distance as he effortlessly handles the many, many appearances and interviews that have been asked of him. He isn’t surprised Bedard is so good at dealing with the heightened attention.

“He’s pretty used to it now,” Danielson said. “He’s been doing it for however many years. He’s just a good person and a mature person and does well with all the media and everything.”

Danielson’s moment in the spotlight is also coming, and he’ll have lots of company in Nashville to support him.

There are more than 20 family members going down, including grandparents and aunts, uncles and cousins, plus older brother Noah and parents Mark and Janna. They arrived on Sunday.

“It’s a pretty cool spot in Nashville so we kind of made it a little family vacation,” Danielson said. “My brother turns 21 on the 29th so we’re making a little trip out of it. We’ve never been to Nashville so it will be pretty cool to get to see it.”

It’s a trip made possible by another journey he made three years ago, when he headed to Brandon to join the Wheat Kings.

Danielson said his gratitude extends beyond the coaching staff — including former coach Don MacGillivray — to people like equipment manager Scott Hlady and physical therapist Zach Hartwick.

“That’s a huge part of where I am today,” Danielson said. “Ever since I was 16 with Donny, he was incredible to me when I started with Brandon. When I first came, they were super welcoming and made sure I had what I needed to get better.

“When I was 16, Donny was incredible to me and gave me tons of opportunity and let me play the way I can. That continued into my 17-year-old year. They’ve been huge for me in just being able to grow into the player I am.”

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