TORONTO — Kraken general manager Ron Francis liked a lot of what he saw from Shane Wright at the World Junior Hockey Championships and wants him to keep doing it regularly.
And that’s why Francis broke the news to Wright in person Friday morning, a day after his 19th birthday and after winning a gold medal with Team Canada at the world’s premier Under-20 tournament, that he’d head back to the major junior ranks.
Francis had felt there wasn’t much left for Wright to accomplish in junior hockey, but the alternative of more bench time with the contending Kraken proved even less palatable.
“If we’re bringing him back to Seattle after the tournament, we wanted to have him playing,” Francis said by phone Friday morning from Halifax, Nova Scotia, where he’d taken in the tournament’s final games. “And right now, I couldn’t say we’d be putting him in the lineup the way the guys are playing and the team’s playing.
“But the bigger picture is, we’re not disappointed with his world juniors. We’re not disappointed with how things have gone. He’s 18, just turned 19 yesterday. We think he’s done a lot of great things.
“His tournament here was outstanding. He may not have gotten the points that maybe people were expecting, but I thought his leadership on and off the ice and how he played was tremendous.
“He played the way he needed to play to win a gold medal, and that was great to see.”
Francis expects Wright will rejoin the Kraken by training camp in the fall.
Wright was named Canada’s captain at the junior tournament and scored a goal in Thursday night’s 3-2 overtime victory over Czech Republic in the gold-medal final. He finished with four goals and three assists for the Canadian squad, ranking sixth in team scoring.
The Kraken, meanwhile, won their third in a row Thursday night, beating the top-ranked Toronto Maple Leafs in the second contest of a seven-game road swing. They boosted their record to 21-12-4, staying in third place in the Pacific Division — four points behind the second-place Los Angeles Kings with five games in hand.
Wright, drafted No. 4 overall by the Kraken in July, finishes his first NHL stint with a goal and an assist in eight games. He added another four goals in five games with the Coachella Valley Firebirds during a two-week AHL conditioning stint, but further minor pro hockey was no longer an option because of league rules.
A deal between the Canadian major junior circuits and the NHL mandates that any teenage draft picks not kept before age 20 must return to their former junior teams.
Wright is returning to the Kingston (Ontario) Frontenacs for now, but Francis has asked that he be dealt to a Memorial Cup contender to further his competitive development. He expects that to happen before the Ontario Hockey League trade deadline on Jan. 10.
CORRECTION: This story has been updated to reflect that Shane Wright was drafted fourth overall, not second as reported in an earlier version.