All Things Matty Beniers, Day 6: Kraken Center On Message To Himself

Editor's Note: The Seattle Kraken don't play again until Feb. 10 in Philadelphia. To help Kraken fans through this difficult period of withdrawal, we will present a daily collection of photos, quotes, and insights into Seattle's own #10, 2023 Calder Trophy winner Matty Beniers.

Matty Beniers Photo Of The Day

Matty Beniers, heeding the wise words, “No man stands so tall as when he stoops to find the puck.”

This piece of undeniable wisdom is often mis-attributed to Abraham Lincoln. First, hockey wasn't invented during Lincoln's lifetime. Second, the actual quote attributed to our 16th President, “No man stands so tall as when he stoops to help a child” - well, Lincoln didn't actually say that, either.

Warm Welcome

Veterans don't always provide a warm welcome for highly-touted draft choices. That can go double on expansion teams, where none of the players know each other all that well.

Matty Beniers arrived as the Kraken's first-ever draft choice, taken 2nd overall in 2021. He told the 32 Thoughts podcast that his new teammates actually eased his transition.

"We had just good people in the locker room through and through. So it was pretty easy to come in and feel comfortable. They would still let me know, 'The game is different now. It's not always like this. You're lucky.' But they were great and made me feel comfortable right from the get go.

"So that was just a really easy transition in that way. Hockey-wise, I just would try to tell myself, 'Have fun. You work all this time, all your life, to try to get to the NHL. You finally get there, you don't want to be gripping your stick tight or things like that. You want to be having fun with it and enjoying yourself. So that was kind of my message to myself."