College Sports
Kraken get an elite playmaker in drafting Jake O’Brien at No. 8 overall
With the 8th overall pick in the 2025 NHL Entry Draft, the Seattle Kraken added another talented center to their growing pipeline, selecting Jake O’Brien of the Brantford Bulldogs. The Toronto native turned heads this season with his elite vision and playmaking ability, racking up 32 goals and 66 assists for 98 points in just […]


With the 8th overall pick in the 2025 NHL Entry Draft, the Seattle Kraken added another talented center to their growing pipeline, selecting Jake O’Brien of the Brantford Bulldogs. The Toronto native turned heads this season with his elite vision and playmaking ability, racking up 32 goals and 66 assists for 98 points in just 68 OHL regular-season games.
O’Brien was the engine behind Brantford’s power play, quarterbacking the top unit and piling up 41 power-play assists—a testament to both his patience and precision. His ability to manipulate defenders and carve through coverage is already drawing praise from scouts. Cam Robinson of Elite Prospects described O’Brien as a player whose “head is always up, scanning, adjusting routes, and inviting defenders to make the first move before slicing them apart with a feed.” In short: he sees plays develop before they even happen.
At 6-foot-1.5 and 172 pounds, O’Brien isn’t the biggest player on the ice, but he rarely needs to be. His game is built on feel, finesse, and hockey sense. While many analysts have noted that he still has room to grow in terms of shooting and skating, his offensive instincts are already NHL-caliber.
Brantford opens the scoring 🚨#NHLDraft prospect Jake O’Brien scores a late first period goal for the @BulldogsOHL to put them up 1-0 heading into the first intermission!#OHLPlayoffs | @CHLHockey pic.twitter.com/p1EaqcmBTA
— Ontario Hockey League (@OHLHockey) April 19, 2025
The Kraken are banking on that upside. O’Brien’s pedigree also speaks volumes, his mom played high-level hockey and now runs her own hockey school, which Jake frequented growing up to fine-tune his craft. His dad also played Division I college hockey and logged a year in the ECHL. The hockey DNA runs deep in the O’Brien family.
This selection marks the fourth time in five drafts that Seattle has used a first-round pick on a center, following Matty Beniers (2021), Shane Wright (2022), and Berkly Catton (2024). And while not all centers stay at that position as pros, the organizational philosophy is clear: keep stacking the middle of the ice. The old saying goes, “You can never have too many centers,” and Seattle seems happy to live by that rule.
Whether O’Brien eventually lands at center or shifts to the wing, his ability to create offense and tilt the ice is what earned him OHL Rookie of the Year honors in 2023-24, when he posted 64 points in 61 games as a 16-year-old. That was just the beginning. The Kraken hope he’s only getting started.