Seattle Signs Matthew Wedman

Today, Seattle announced the signing of Matthew Wedman to a standard player agreement. He played last season for the South Side Athletic Club.

Wedman was a 2nd round selection in the 2014 Bantam Draft and getting a player signed this early is a tad unusual but it is also a great sign that he is committed to playing in Seattle and that the Thunderbirds feel he has a good shot to be a part of the team next year as a 16 year old.

Wedman is the brother of Cole and Dan. Cole played for Spokane and Dan is a Cornell commit.

Russ Farwell described Wedman as a Center and even though most kids play Center at some point in their youth, this seems to be an indication that they see him eventually playing there for Seattle.

Prospect and Development camps

Most NHL teams have developmental camps where they bring in their newly drafted players, other players in their system, and some younger free agent players to get to know them better.

Here is a list that we compiled of Thunderbirds who have been invited to camps. 

• Shea Theodore - Anaheim
• Branden Troock - Dallas
• Justin Hickman - Winnipeg
• Evan Wardley - Montreal
• Jared Hauf - Winnipeg
• Taran Kozun - Washington
• Dylan Gambrell (prospect) - Brooklyn Islanders

If you see any others, please let us know, and we will add them to this list

CHL Import Draft

Seattle's first selection this morning is a 17 (technically he's still 16 and his birthday is on the 17th of July) year old Center from Denmark named Alexander True. True is listed at 6'3" (Surprise! a big guy... never saw that coming) and 179 lbs. So he's tall with a frame that probably needs to fill out. He played in several places last year, playing 16 games for Rungsted U17 and posting 62 points in 16 games. He then also played for Rungsted's IK team in the Denmark 2 league for 25 games and with the big club for 11 games.

Here is a video profile on him from Hockey's Future.

True is a cousin to the recently drafted Nikolaj Ehlers, who went 9th overall to the Winnipeg Jets.

Have fun trying to search for much on this guy... I can't find much of anything.

As usual... with a bigger guy. I really want to see how he skates. Too many big guys can't skate and this is a league where you have to be able to skate.

Seattle's second selection this morning is another 17 year old. This time it is Florian Baltram from Austria.

Baltram is a smaller player at 5'10" and 170lbs (nearly the same weight at True) and is listed as a LW.

Playing 42 games for the U20 Lower Austria Stars Club (which appears to be a part of the Okanagan Hockey Academy) he posted 17 goals and 24 assists and a +16 rating last season.

Collection of videos here and I believe he is wearing #89 (that would be sweet if he wore that here).

He played for Austria's U18 team at the WJC-18's (In a lower group with Hungary, Japan, Ukraine, Poland and Slovenia) and had 2 points in 5 games.