Hockey in August? Yes for Montour, Prospects

It’s August and time to start the 2025-26 hockey season? The answer is a strong-to-the-net “yes.” While this eighth month on the calendar is regarded as the sport’s quietest, there is no denying the news and events already unfolding to ring in a new hockey year. Let’s start with top news for Kraken fans and skate our way through other puck-drop goings-on:

Montour Takes First Step Toward Olympic Roster

Coming off a career-high 18 goals for the Kraken and an impressive showing at the 2025 International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) Men’s World Championship tournament, Seattle defenseman Brandon Montour was invited last Friday to participate in Team Canada’s National Team Orientation Camp as the squad prepares for the 2026 Olympic Winter Games next February in Milan, Italy. The three-day Olympic camp Aug. 26-28 includes team-building exercises, team meetings, presentations and media opportunities. Forty-four Canada-born NHLers have been invited. Only Colorado defenseman Cale Makar, already named to the Olympic roster as one of the first six players to officially make the team (the other five are forwards), scored more NHL goals last season than Montour among the13 D-men attending.

“This is a great opportunity for Brandon and we’re all so excited for him,” said Kraken general manager Jason Botterill, a former Team Canada competitor himself and the only player from any nation to win three straight gold medals at the IIHF World Junior Championship. “He’s a proud Canadian and a terrific representation of the Kraken.”

Kraken Top Pick O’Brien Stands Out in ‘Showcase’

Another event, the 2025 World Junior Summer Showcase in Minneapolis, finished a week-long run this past Saturday (Aug. 2) to afford prospects from Canada, USA, Sweden and Finland the opportunity to participate in practices, scrimmages and three exhibition games. Team Canada iced two full squads to play those three contests plus an opening intersquad game. Three Kraken draft choices and forwards, 2024 first-rounder Berkly Catton, 2025 first-rounder Jake O’Brien and 2024 fourth-rounder Ollie Josephson were part of the showcase for Canada. O’Brien notched a goal and primary assist for player-of-the-game honors in a 6-2 win over Team USA. Kraken 2024 third-round pick, Team Finland goaltender Kim Saarinen, made 30 saves in a 6-3 win over the Canadians. Seattle prospect and defenseman Blake Fiddler, a second round pick this summer, earned an assist during a Team USA loss to Sweden.

Three-Week Break, Then Bring on the New Year

The 2025 NHL Draft, held in late June in Los Angeles, was the final event of the 2024-25 hockey calendar. Kraken scouts from North America and Europe were in the team’s draft room for the two days, seven rounds and six Kraken draft choices that included picks from the U.S., Canada, Sweden and Russia. Less than a month later, some scouts were in Minneapolis for last week’s showcase while most of the amateur scouting group was gearing up for an August that features the U18 Hlinka-Gretzky Cup mid-month and the start of European pro leagues’ training camps in later August. Those camps will include 2025 Kraken draft choices Maxim Agafonov (defenseman, 5th round) in Russia plus Karl Annborn (defenseman, 6th round) and Loke Krantz (forward, 6th round) in Sweden. Most European pro leagues drop the puck on regular-season play the first half of September.

“We get about three weeks off from any kind of work,” said Seattle director of amateur scouting Robert Kron, citing the first 20-some days of July as downtime before the month’s final week features planning sessions and detailed itineraries among scouts covering North America and Europe.

History of Hlinka-Gretzky Cup

The Hlinka-Gretzky tournament is a major summer competition that annually mobilizes NHL scouts and front office executives with a pointed focus on the best prospects for the 2026 NHL Draft. This year’s version of the U18 event, which runs Aug. 11-16, will be staged in Brno, Czechia, and Trencin, Slovakia, involving the best young players from eight nations: The two host countries plus USA, Canada, Finland, Sweden, Switzerland and Germany. The list of future stars who made names at this tourney is legendary while the first round of next June’s NHL Draft will be dominated by this summer's Hlinka Gretzky participants.

The tournament is named in honor of felled prominent Czech player and the most successful Czech national team head coach, Ivan Hlinka, who died in a 2014 vehicle accident. When Canada joined Czechia and Slovakia in 2018 to co-host the annual tourney, its name was updated to fete Hall of Famer Wayne Gretzky. It has long served as the unofficial start of NHL draft boards each hockey season.

Sorting in Sweden

For the Kraken’s three Sweden-based staffers, amateur scouts Pelle Eklund and Marcus Fingal along with supervisor of European scouting Axel Alavaara, August is the time to determine how each gets early looks at prospects based in their home nation before Eklund and Alavaara fan out by late fall to evaluate players in other nations such as Switzerland, Germany, Czechia and Slovakia. The team has scouts based in Finland and Russia. The trio attends games of the top Swedish pro league along with the U20 Swedish juniors league with Fingal going deeper on the juniors set.

“I think we are fortunate to have three guys in Sweden,” said Alavaara, a former defense-first defenseman who played 12 seasons in his home country’s top pro league, one in the top Swiss league and three more in Germany’s top league. “Not all clubs have that many, usually it’s one or two. And the good part is I live up north, Pelle lives in the middle, and Marcus lives in the south. From that perspective, we don't have to travel so much from the start to recognize the players and see them early season.”