MINNEAPOLIS — One of many first occasions Adam Nightingale went to observe Ryker Lee, he was “a wee little” 14-year-old, his stick was spray-painted black and he “was doing all these stickhandling strikes.”
Nightingale took to calling him “The Wizard.” A number of years later, the nickname has caught. He’s additionally now a first-round choose of the Nashville Predators and an enormous a part of a sterling freshman class for Nightingale’s Michigan State program, becoming a member of the Spartans with fellow first-rounders Cayden Lindstrom and Porter Martone and second-rounder Eric Nilson.
This week, all 4 of them are in Minneapolis at Ridder Enviornment taking part in video games within the World Junior Summer season Showcase.
Within the match’s opening recreation between USA White and Finland, he picked up two objectives and an help. He opened the scoring on a fairly give-and-go with Bruins first-rounder James Hagens, added a second to make it 4-2 early within the third interval after which handed up the hat trick to search out fellow Predators prospect Teddy Stiga for the empty-netter.
In Monday’s second recreation in opposition to Sweden, he had and created a number of extra appears and was moved from the second energy play to the primary.
To get right here, Lee has undergone what his previous Shattuck St. Mary’s coach Tom Ward calls “an absolute metamorphosis in his world and his life during the last 5 years due to his progress.”
4 years in the past, when Lee arrived at Shattuck for his bantam 12 months, he was 5-foot-3 and Ward stated “like 68 kilos.” Bruins prospect Will Zellers, one among his teammates on that Shattuck workforce, guessed that he was “like 5-foot and perhaps 95 kilos” when he first met him.
“He was a bone rack,” Ward stated. “Oh man, he was slightly man.”
When he began his U16 season at Shattuck three years in the past, he was nonetheless simply 5-foot-6. He was 5-foot-7 when he dedicated to Michigan State. In his U18 12 months at Shattuck underneath Ward, he registered 45 objectives and 99 factors in 57 video games (second on a loaded workforce of future NHL picks as a younger 2006 taking part in principally with 2005s), and one other two factors in two video games with the USHL’s Madison Capitols at season’s finish, incomes him a spot on Group USA on the Hlinka Gretzky Cup, the place he registered one level in 5 video games. That was sufficient to earn him a “B” score on NHL Central Scouting’s preliminary gamers to observe checklist, which “signifies a 2nd/third spherical candidate.”
Firstly of his draft 12 months, he’d shot as much as 5-foot-11.5. He then gained the USHL’s Rookie of the Yr Award, scoring 31 objectives and 68 factors in 58 video games with the Capitols, each fourth within the league. He led Madison in objectives and factors by 9 apiece and registered one other six factors in six playoff video games, additionally tops on the workforce. On the midseason mark, he was named Participant of the Sport on the 2025 Chipotle All-American Sport, scoring the game-winner in a 3-2 win with 4:54 left.
On the NHL Scouting Mix in Buffalo, they measured him at 6-foot-0.25 and 185 kilos.
“I believe within the final 24 to 36 months he has grown like 8-10 inches,” Ward stated.
By way of it — one progress spurt after one other — he climbed the ranks, rising to No. 40 on NHL Central Scouting’s midterm rating of North American skaters after which once more to No. 28 on their remaining checklist.
The Predators referred to as his title with the twenty sixth choose.
Regardless of the newfound peak, he’s nonetheless obtained the wizardry he needed to study as slightly man, too.
Capitols head coach and common supervisor Andy Brandt says Lee’s stick expertise are “at a special stage.”
“Stick. Mind. Off the charts,” Michigan State affiliate head coach Jared DeMichiel stated earlier this 12 months.
“What can I say? That child is likely one of the most expert offensive gamers with the puck on his stick,” Zellers stated Sunday night time. “The issues he does and tries in video games, and pulls them off profitable, I’ve by no means seen something prefer it. He’s one among a form. And that man’s obtained a great goal-scoring contact too. He’s a particular participant. And he has grown and nonetheless stored that hand-eye and that ability in his toolbox. I imply, it’s fairly particular. The sky’s the restrict for that sort of participant like him.”
Now Lee is making an attempt to point out that he’s extra than simply his palms.
The 2 commonest issues scouts have talked about after they’ve talked about Lee during the last couple of years are, first, his palms and second, that his skating wanted to enhance.
When he arrived at Shattuck, Ward stated he was slightly heavy-footed and “sort of a thumper.”
“You possibly can really feel him coming behind you,” Ward stated.
A part of that was the fixed rising and the fact that issues hadn’t fallen into place for him but.
In Madison, Brandt set him up with their skating coach, Amy Claggett. Claggett would skate with the workforce as soon as every week, and Lee one other time. They labored on lengthening his stride to match his longer legs, his effectivity along with his arm motion and in addition transferring his toes extra and the puck faster — and trusting that he’d get it again. Lee stated he loved choosing her mind about issues that he may take into apply.
As soon as the expansion spurts slowed and three inches a 12 months turned to at least one inch a 12 months, his skating actually began to return, and the outcomes confirmed.
Within the agility testing for the prospects on the Chipotle All-American Sport, he ranked close to the highest.
“It was one thing that he labored on, that he was aware of, and it’s one thing that he’s persevering with to develop into,” Brandt stated of Lee’s skating. “He has continued to adapt to his progress whereas persevering with to work on his skating. Simply in a 12 months, his foot velocity improved noticeably.”
Final season, he additionally labored arduous with Madison’s power and conditioning coach Jason Johnson. Collectively, they didn’t simply keep his weight in season (normally the objective), however really managed so as to add 5 kilos. The teaching employees at MSU seen it instantly (that he was thicker within the shoulders and filling out) when he arrived on campus following Predators growth camp earlier this summer season.
The outcomes confirmed within the testing on the NHL Scouting Mix, too. He completed first in vertical soar (with a standing vertical soar of 25.67 inches), thirteenth within the no arm vertical soar, tenth in left-hand grip (151 kilos) and tied for 14th in pullups with 12.
“I get his skating wants to return, however look out,” DeMichiel stated. “I don’t assume he’s finished rising both. Unreal child, too. Nice power to him. He adores the sport.”
He has additionally at all times been “a aggressive little man,” in accordance with Ward, which has helped him mitigate in opposition to his measurement and skating at totally different factors in his profession.
Ward stated that Shattuck really obtained fortunate that he was as small as he was as a result of the gamers who’ve his ability and in addition extra bodily stature at an early age have “everyone on the earth wanting them.”
“It was a blessing that he began out as slightly man. And now that he’s transferring on out into the massive, actual hockey world, he has been blessed once more, and he has had a progress spurt. As a result of he’s not afraid of the fitness center,” Wars stated. “He’s a robust child, a farmer sturdy child. He’s wiry sturdy. He can maintain his personal, and he can grasp. He’s a great athlete. He’s obtained good explosiveness. And he’s dropping his heavy toes. Now that he’s getting stronger in his legs and his core, he can carry them up, and set them down, and get again, and reduce and cease and begin.”
Due to that growth, Ward stated Nightingale and his employees are actually the fortunate ones.
“(Nightingale) has obtained a great participant. And he’s an exquisite child. He will get it. Just like the tortoise does win the race and he has simply needed to keep it up,” Ward stated. “He’s only a rink rat, throwback sort of child. If he could possibly be up on the rink all day lengthy, whether or not it’s on the ice or simply within the dressing room, or coaching, or laughing, or simply capturing the breeze along with his buddies, he can be. He’s only a rat, and within the biggest, most affectionate, best manner. (He’s) a extremely good teammate, and he performs his ass off, and he has lastly grown. And I’m so glad for him as a result of he’s a totally totally different individual.”
The Predators would be the subsequent fortunate ones.
“I used to be telling the entire guys from the (NHL) after they have been calling and asking questions on him, should you don’t take him when you’ve got the possibility to take him, you’re going to be kicking your self in 4 or 5 years as a result of this child’s going to be ripping it up,” Ward stated.
In that manner, Ward thinks Lee’s metamorphosis really helped his growth “as a result of it’s virtually a curse should you’re a younger child and also you’re already the quickest skater or the largest child and also you don’t develop issues in your recreation which are nuanced-based which are in your mind and your soul.”
“He got here into his love of the sport as slightly man and realized the best way to manipulate his manner by the timber,” Ward stated. “And now he’s a great, massive average-sized child, and he can deal with his personal, and I’m positive he’s loving being on the opposite aspect of some checks right here.”
Ryker Lee earned the nickname “The Wizard” due to his stickhandling strikes. (Steven Ellis / Day by day Faceoff)
Ask Brandt and Ward what they’ll bear in mind most about teaching Lee, and so they each begin with how a lot enjoyable it was and the way hardworking he was.
“Proper from when Ryker stepped onto the ice, we knew his strategy day-after-day,” Ward stated. “We do expertise day-after-day, and when he will get on the ice and it’s his flip, he takes each rep severe. He may problem gamers in one-on-one conditions or small-area video games, however he makes it enjoyable. He’s obtained a contagious angle that he brings to the rink, and it’s one among work ethic, but additionally one which he really enjoys doing what he does.”
However they at all times come again to his palms.
For Brandt, it’s the best way he does all of it along with his head up. And he stated Lee’s edges whereas dealing with don’t get talked about sufficient, both.
“He can reduce on a dime and use his physique and torque his physique in numerous methods,” Brandt stated. “He can nonetheless skate, he can nonetheless make a play, all whereas having the puck on a string. And as a defender, that’s arduous as a result of should you make a mistaken learn, it’s a harmful factor when he’s obtained his head up. After which he additionally likes to shoot it, in order a goaltender, you’re by no means positive if he’s going to move or shoot it, and his deceptiveness provides to his stick expertise.”
For Ward, it’s the absurdity of the best way he at all times finds his manner out and in of the tightest cracks in protection. Even on a workforce with guys similar to Zellers, the reigning USHL Participant of the Yr, and Aidan Park, a draft choose of the Oilers recognized for his palms, it was Lee who was “The Wizard.”
“You possibly can put three of us, 4 of us, in a telephone sales space and we’d by no means contact the puck,” Ward stated. “He’s obtained that capacity. And he can wire it, too. Like he can shoot it and he’s not afraid to attain. He’s not one among these guys that’s simply enamored with stickhandling. He’s simply as enamored with scoring.”
Ask Lee the place his palms come from, and he says it’s twofold. They have been honed with arduous work in his basement, however they have been additionally a necessity of his actuality as a smaller participant.
“I needed to discover ways to be smarter and put myself in good positions,” Lee stated.
Together with his new measurement, he’s studying to make use of his physique extra as nicely.
Between growth camp with the Preds and the World Junior Summer season Showcase, he has additionally been in East Lansing figuring out with Michigan State’s power and conditioning coach Will Morlock, who he stated was one of many predominant causes he and others are actually selecting the Spartans.
“I’ve been working with him ever since I obtained on campus, and the exercises have been arduous, however that’s precisely what I want, and he sort of caters every little thing to what you want particularly,” Lee stated.
After a robust begin on the World Junior Summer season Showcase, he’s excited to proceed to point out USA Hockey the progress he has made this fall — and that he’s extra than simply his palms — along with his sights set on making the workforce in December.
“Clearly, I’ve an offensive recreation and I can carry offense to this workforce, however I additionally wish to show that I can outwork opponents and play in all conditions for them,” he stated.
(Picture of Ryker Lee: Madison Capitols / Rosenau Pictures)
