The Seattle Kraken kicked off their fourth straight season by welcoming Professional Women’s Hockey League Seattle Torrent head coach Christine Bumstead to development camp.
Burnstead joins the Kraken to bring a different perspective on the game for the young prospects.
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“As coaches, we’re always looking to grow and learn, too,” Kraken director of player development Cory Murphy said to NHL.com. “When you bring new voices in with that kind of experience to add to the camp and provide their feedback and their voice, I think it makes us all better.”
Bumstead has several connections with the Kraken, beginning officially in June when she was named head coach of the Torrent. Bumstead had served as assistant bench coach in the team’s first season, where they went 8-1-5-16.
According to NHL.com, Kraken assistant general manager Alex Mandrycky invited Bumstead to join the development camp staff.
Bumstead explained the perspective she brings to camp.
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“The PWHL game is different than the NHL game,” Bumstead said to NHL.com. “That’s also something that we can share and provide – the different little nuances within our game or the little nuances within our athletes and how we develop them. You have to work with those players …they’re very successful and elite where they’re playing, but you want to craft them and develop them to be elite and successful here as a Seattle Kraken or as a Coachella Firebird, right? So that’s something that’s important, and we are able to have those conversations between the dev staff and me.”
Murphy went on to explain further the benefits of having Bumstead around at development camp.
“Just getting a different perspective, you can see the passion comes out right away,” Murphy said. “We had (Bumstead) running the bench, and you could see her getting prepared and the competitive fire. It was great to have her on the ice. I’ll be following the Torrent for sure.”
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