Caden Price

June 2023 – Price was selected 84th overall by the Kraken. Pat Quinn

April 2023 – Caden Price’s tools are very enticing, and it’s a large part of the reason for his early-season hype following a very strong performance at the Hlinka. He is a comfortably above-average skater who is mobile in all four directions and is capable of patrolling a very large defensive area with the help of a long reach. His bright flashes are blinding, but the lows are quite low as well. There are sequences of impressive playmaking ability, great gap control and transition defending, and strong handling. However, there are equally sequences of low engagement, passiveness, lack of scanning, and general inconsistency. His late-August birthday and resulting longer developmental runway played a role in our collective comfort in ranking him inside the first round, as he could truly break out next season. Sebastian High

October 2022 – Price had a solid rookie season with Kelowna, tallying a pair of goals and 19 assists while averaging just under 16 minutes of ice time over 47 games. Behind Cameron Allen, he was arguably Team Canada’s best blueliner at this past summer’s Hlinka Gretzky tournament, notching a goal and four assists in five games to help lead Canada to a gold medal. It is still very early in his draft year, but Price is also well on his way to topping last year’s offensive output, already with five points through Kelowna’s first four games of the season.

Price is a mobile, two-way defenseman who displays high-end puck-moving skills from the back end. He has good size to protect pucks along the wall and the four-way mobility to elude pressure through cutbacks or lateral movement in order to relieve pressure from opposing forecheckers. Price consistently scans the ice, making himself aware of pending threats and potential options before the puck comes to him, facilitating quick and efficient puck moving in all three zones. Price is also a mature defender, and on the rare occasions that he turns the puck over or gets caught out of position, he is often the one breaking up the ensuing chance and starting play up ice for his club. He has a good stick in contested situations, pulling pucks off the wall through traffic to escape pressure, and he does a good job of disrupting passing lanes in coverage. Price likes to step up and smother the opposition in transition or jump into the rush if he sees a lane, but he has a good sense of when he has the support to do so and when he should hang back. Price’s skillset lends itself to both special teams units as well. His mobility and quick reads allow him to open up shooting or passing lanes from the point with stop-ups and head fakes, and he knows where the soft spots are with the man advantage. On the penalty kill, his skating ability and active stick help to pressure the opposition’s powerplay, and he does well to box out around the net. I’m not convinced that Price has a dynamic offensive quality from the back end, but he is a more than capable puck mover with some untapped offensive upside, and his defensive game is fairly refined for someone who is one of the youngest players in the 2023 class. In a forward-heavy draft, Price’s potential as an all-situations, two-way defender who can handle top-four minutes could make him one of the first defensemen off the board. Nick Richard