On any given day around 2 p.m. in Doug Crashley’s gym at Crash Conditioning in Calgary — or on the ice with skills coach Dave Liffiton — you might find Carter Yakemchuk in a wrestling match with Andrew Basha.
They’re not wrestling because it’s that day’s training activity. They’re wrestling because competitiveness has turned into chirping, and chirping into a battle, and a battle into a fight.
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Yakemchuk and Basha are both top prospects for the 2024 NHL Draft.
Yakemchuk is a 6-foot-3, 201-pound right-shot defenseman who racked up 120 penalty minutes with the Calgary Hitmen this year and was drafted seventh by the Ottawa Senators at the NHL Draft. Basha is a 5-foot-11, 174-pound forward with a chance to join him in the first round.
Here, none of that matters, and buddies very quickly turn into combatants.
Basha has always fought above his weight class. But Yakemchuk is now “just learning how strong he’s going to be.”
For a time, they had to pull this side out of him.
From what Crashley knew of Yakemchuk’s dad, Robin, who played in the AJHL, “He was a really long guy who had zero fear and was not afraid to fight.” Early on in Yakemchuk’s WHL career, Crashley and his staff would give it to him — encouraging him to be more fearless.
Eventually, it clicked, and instead of just being talented — the hard-shooting, confident-handling defenseman scored 30 goals in his draft year, a rare benchmark — he also became mean.
“We’d try to goad him a little bit and he’d get so mad, and he’s a strong guy, but we’d stir the pot with him a little bit, and when he finally fought in the western league, it was like he’d dropped all of this weight off of his shoulders,” Crashley said on a recent phone call. “From that point on from about a year ago, his progression just skyrocketed.”
Now, “it’s every day” according to Crashley.
Yakemchuk still has another level to get to, too.
“He’s going to be quietly very, very strong and a little nasty. And that’s going to be very good for his pro career,” Crashley said. “And even physically, he’s not even close. His brothers (Keeling and Connor, both older) grew late, he might grow a bit more. So that’s a part of his process now. I think he’s working his way up the curve and not near the peak whatsoever.”
Among the first things NHL teams mention when they call Crashley or Hitmen general manager Garry Davidson to talk about Yakemchuk is how little they’re able to pull out of him when they’ve met with him.
“Whoa, he’s not very outspoken,” scouts will say.
“Well, that’s who he is. He’s quiet, he’s an introvert,” Crashley will answer. “He lets his play do the talking.”
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Davidson was hired by the Hitmen in November, and Yakemchuk was “extremely quiet” with him at the beginning. Though he loosened up over time and their conversations became more two-way, he’s still coming out of his shell that way, as well.
“That’s all part of his growing up and maturing and learning to deal with that part of life with the communication piece,” Davidson said. “He’s very much so a quiet kid, but I also know that he has come out of that and his personality has grown this year.”
The second thing they’ll ask about is his skating.
Crashley will answer quickly.
“Man, I’m not even sure he fully has his feet under him,” he’ll insist.
In his first year in the WHL, Crashley said, Yakemchuk “couldn’t stay on his feet and was falling over at random times all the time.” Today, even at 6-3 and over 200 pounds, Crashley says “he still has a young body.”
He says that’s actually part of the reason why so many NHL teams are high on Yakemchuk.
There’s the obvious talent. The 30 goals, tops among all WHL defensemen. The 71 points in 66 games, tops amongst draft-eligible WHL defensemen. Last year’s 19 goals, third-most amongst all WHL defensemen a full year out from the draft. Last year’s Central Division Second All-Star (he was the only 2024 draft-eligible named to one of the WHL’s All-Star team) and this year’s Central Division nomination for the league’s Defenseman of the Year award.
“He’s got some outstanding offensive abilities,” Davidson said. “His puck handling and his shooting and that half of his game is at a very, very high level. And he’s one of those guys that loves to play offense. It’s kind of like how sometimes you talk about a player as a pass-first mentality or a shoot-first mentality. Carter’s all about offence first, and there’s many nights where he wows people with what he does out there offensively.”
Friendly reminder that Carter Yakemchuk is eligible for the 2024 #NHLDraft!@WHLHitmen pic.twitter.com/nJzQTS7tqZ
— The WHL (@TheWHL) October 14, 2023
But despite his size and his age (Yakemchuk’s September 2005 birthday makes him one of the older players in the draft), he’s still got huge growth potential, Crashley and Davidson say — both on and off the ice, and even in becoming more outgoing.
“I think he’s only just getting comfortable with how good he’s becoming. It’s not easy. He’s getting a lot of attention, it’s a heavy spotlight, and he has always been a good player but now he’s working towards a goal of being a great player,” Crashley said. “It’s a world-changer when it starts to happen and you get NHL guys calling.”
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His defensive game, which Davidson said there was “a lot of concern about” heading into his draft year, has already improved dramatically.
“The one thing is he competes hard on defense. He’s very physical and he isn’t near close to maturity physically,” Davidson said. “When it comes to his defensive game, Carter just has to change his mentality a little bit and just say, ‘Hey, when they have the puck, I’ve got to defend, and when we have the puck, I’ve got to be on offense.’ As soon as he straightens that part out in his own mind, I think he’ll just become a much more complete player.”
The same goes for his discipline after that meanness really started to boil over.
“I’ve had a conversation with him where we need him on the ice more than we need him in the penalty box,” Davidson said. “There’s nobody second-guessing him in that regard because he has shown up and demonstrated that he’ll get involved. And part of it is his competitive nature. He gets frustrated and upset out there and he goes over the line and ends up taking penalties that are undisciplined. But he’ll figure that out, and I think it’s more of a positive than a negative. He’s just got to control his emotions and channel his energy and emotions in a positive way.”
And even with continued room to grow, Davidson says Yakemchuk already “checks a lot of boxes.”
“He certainly is demonstrating that he should be able to do some things offensively and certainly be a power-play guy (in the NHL). And if he addresses the other parts in his game, there’s no reason he can’t be an all-around two-way defenseman,” Davidson said. “But his offensive part is the part that we all see and get excited about.”
Most scouts agree, too. NHL Central Scouting ranked him No. 6 among North American skaters eligible for the draft on their most recent list, tops among all CHL defensemen.
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“Carter is a big, mobile and active defenseman who often leads his team in time on ice,” reads the report. “A strong skater that likes to have the puck on his stick, he is a confident puck carrier that will look to transport the puck up ice. He has the ability to beat defenders 1-on-1 with speed and dangles. He is deployed on special team units and is a huge asset on the powerplay from the offensive zone blue line. Carter can drive his teams’ offense as he distributes the puck well and creates scoring chances for teammates with his accurate and creative reads. In the defensive zone he can handle speed off the rush and win battles along boards and at the net front. Carter has an NHL tool set.”
On April 2, just a week after his season with the Hitmen ended, Yakemchuk was back in Crashley’s gym getting to work.
Their focus this summer, beyond the weights and continuing to get stronger, will be on his skating and mobility.
Sprint work. Changes of directions. Opening up his hips and flexibility. Different shin angles. Absorbing and reloading. Skips, hops and jumps so that he can better learn ground contact and link his movements together.
“That’ll be massive for him,” Crashley said. “And it has come quite a ways and still has quite a ways left. That’s the neat thing about him is it’s getting better but he’s not crushing it in the gym naturally yet. He’s still not getting enough of his legs with his snap in his skating. But it’s going in the right direction and it’s not instantaneous. He’s still growing into his body and hasn’t had a long period of time without going through a growth spurt.”
Yakemchuk, who describes himself as hardworking, intense, skilled, fast and deceptive, says the former comes from his parents, Robin and Tammy, who own two Burger Kings in Fort McMurray and have spent his entire life making the seven-hour drive north from Calgary to run the two businesses.
He’s aware of the concerns some have with his defensive game, which he admits is the biggest area he needs to improve.
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“I think my positioning and then being able to close on guys quicker in corners are probably the two biggest things,” he said.
But he also knows that it’s his shot and his offensive ability, which he calls his two best attributes, that will carry him.
Davidson thinks those attributes will carry him to a long career in the NHL, too.
“He’s going to go very early in the first round,” Davidson said. “I’ll be surprised if he isn’t gone fairly soon in the draft.”
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— With reporting from Moncton, N.B.
(Top photo: Jenn Pierce / Calgary Hitmen)
