Czechia Connection at No. 20

NASHVILLE - When the Kraken selected forward Eduard Sale in the NHL Draft Wednesday night, the connection between Seattle and Brno, Czechia grew tighter and stronger. Sale's hometown of Brno is the same as Kraken director of amateur scouting Robert Kron.

Before he moved into scouting as a career, Kron played for a decade in the NHL, appearing in 787 games while playing mostly for the Hartford Whalers and then the Carolina Hurricanes when the franchise moved to Raleigh. Kron and Kraken GM were long-time teammates as players.

When Sale's parents and younger sister were up in the team suite at Bridgestone Arena to visit with Ron Francis and other team officials, Kron was able to speak to the family in their shared homeland language about the excitement of the night. Sale's father, Marek, speaks some English while mom Marketa and 13-year-old sister Roza do not.

"It's a second time I get the chance to shake the hand of a player from my hometown," said Kron, referring to he and Francis selecting playoffs breakout star Carolina Hurricanes forward Martin Necas in the first round of the 2017 NHL Draft. "It's really fun. It just happened that way, but I'm really happy that we were able to get Eduard [at No. 20]."

Sale (pronounced "Shah-la") was clearly a player the Kraken hope might "fall" to them, per Francis' comments at the podium after Round 1. For his part, Francis has his own link to Brno. When the Kraken GM and Seattle head coach Dave Hakstol were both working for Team Canada at the 2019 International Ice Hockey Federation in Slovakia, the two colleagues now and then bonded over a long drive with much conversation about both hockey and life when they traveled to Brno to scout an upcoming opponent.

Francis said "we're happy we got [Sale] where we did" in the draft order. When the 2022-23 season started, Sale was in the discussion as a top-10 pick but his stock - luckily for the Kraken - waned a bit with teams because of Sale's solid but not eye-popping numbers in the Czech pro league, which is known as a tougher European league for teens.

"It's always tough for kids to play against men," said Francis. "The fact he was in that league and playing is a positive for us, not a negative.

"We saw him at the [2023] World Juniors in Halifax," said Francis. "The kid's a real smart hockey player. He's got skills. We think there's a big upside to his game."

That upside is evident from Sale's play with Czechia national teams, for which he scored 29 points in 29 games this past season, leading his country to a silver medal at World Juniors, the first medal of any color at World Juniors since 2005.

"Whenever Eduard played in his age, he wasn't a good player, he was a dominant player," said Craig Button, a former NHL GM now draft analyst for TSN in Canada. "Even when he played up in juniors as a 16-year-old he dominated."

Button made a beeline for Sale in the interview room at Bridgestone Arena, just to give the 18-year-old a congratulatory hug.

"Eduard is an energetic, enthusiastic young person," said Button. "He's got loads of ability. You see a joy in his play but he also plays with fierce competitiveness ... I'm not one to talk about 'steals' in draft [without an upward career trajectory to back it up], but this is a top-notch player."

Interesting that Button remarked about the "joy" in Sale's game. During a conversation in the Kraken's suite late in the night with their son helping with translation, both of Sale's parents confirmed their son still has passion for the sport even with the pressure of living up first-round expectations, which were quite lofty after Sale was top performer at last summer's Hlinka Gretzky Cup showcase tournament. From the age of three, inspired by Sale's "grandpop" (Marketa's father) who played hockey, young Eduard took quickly and fully to the sport. By 13, Kron was hearing from friends in Brno about this gifted young player.

"By then, maybe there was some dream [of Eduard] playing in the NHL, but it was just a dream," said Marek Sale.

"My dad always pushed me when I was younger," said Eduard Sale, smiling. "I know it was only for the good. It's normal and it was always fun to be playing. It's still a lot of fun for me."

Sale said he is confident he has the skills to make it in the NHL, but added he will be looking to the Kraken player development group and strength and conditioning coaches to "put on some kilos" to be better prepared for the NHL's physicality, for which the Czechia pro league provided context this past season.

For his part, Kron sees a bright future for the Kraken's third-ever first-round draft choice: "[Sale] is an extremely smart player. He's got great hockey sense. He's a lanky 6-2, a tall kid. He works extremely hard ... What we like about him is he played left wing all year [at the pro level] but he's a natural center. He's played all his life at the center position. He's very versatile player and offensively talented."