Meet Kalen Mills: The Wild’s 10th Pick of the WHL Draft
The first round of the 2025 WHL draft took place Wednesday afternoon. Once again, I was able to snag a seat in the Wenatchee draft war room.
Knowing that the draft gets underway at 4pm Pacific time, I arrived at the Town Toyota Center parking lot ten minutes before four.
3:52pm I text Wild General Manager Bliss Littler that I’m walking up the stairs. I arrive early and charge my laptop in the hallway.
4:00pm I call Bliss. He picks up. “Is it all right if I walk in?” “Yes, come on in!”
As I walk in, Leigh Mendlesohn, the Wild’s goalie coach and scouting director, sits in the far front right of the 2nd-floor room at the Town Toyota Center. He is sitting in front of a computer. A half-dozen scouts from every Western Canadian province are standing by on a Zoom call.
Assistant General Manager Chris Clark is in front of me, to my left, of the war room movie screen showing Clarky’s laptop computer. It has all the teams lined up in order of their picks on the left. On the right of the screen is a list of players weighted by the Wild coaching staff and the Wild scouts. I wanted to take a picture of this list, but I didn’t. It’s top secret.
Wenatchee General Manager Bliss Littler is in a great mood and is sitting to my right.
All the hard work of scouting 14 and 15-year-old hockey players all over Western Canada is in the books. Now the Wenatchee front office staff will wait their turn to select a future star for the Wenatchee Wild.
Minute by minute: Behind the scenes of the 2025 WHL Prospects Draft
4:01pm: There is a rumor that the Kelowna Rockets may trade their third draft pick.
4:02pm The Regina Pats are the first team to pick and are now on the clock. Bliss, Clarky, and Leigh wager who will be selected and bet an order of onion rings for the correct guess. Bliss tells the room that Maddox Shultz will go first.
4:08pm Chatter in the room…will Regina trade the first pick?
4:11pm: As expected, Maddox Shultz, 2010 year forward, is picked first in the 2025 WHL Draft. Bliss Littler wins some onion rings.
4:13pm Connor Bedard congratulates Maddox on the WHL draft coverage feed.
4:18pm The Edmonton Oil Kings take Right Defender Holden Wouters as the 2nd pick of the draft.
4:19pm Intel has it that Penticton might trade down from their fourth pick…but they want to swap and stay in the first round.
4:22pm With the Kelowna Rockets on the clock for the 3rd pick. The WHL feed breaks the news: “We have a trade.” Regina gets the 3rd pick from Kelowna. The Rockets, in return, get one of Regina’s 2nd-round picks (26th overall), Regina’s 2026 and 2027 1st-round picks. Wow.
4:25pm Bliss says out loud, “Did not see that coming from Regina.”
4:26pm The Regina Pats use the 3rd pick to select center, Liam Pugh, from the Langley Hockey Academy U18s.
4:29pm The room again wonders if Penticton will trade their 4th pick of the draft.
4:35pm The Penticton Vees have made a pick - that’s pending. Their head coach admitted in a recent interview that the Vees were leaning towards a defender with their first pick.
4:36pm: It's confirmed: Penticton gets their blue liner and selects Thor Liffiton, a Right Defender from the Calgary North Stars.
4:38 p.m., Everett is now on the clock. The Wild staff predicts the Tips will go with center forward Reid Nicol.
4:45pm: Their hunch is correct. Everett selects Reid Nicol from Brandon with the fifth pick. NOTE: Everett General Manager Mike Fraser was a next-door neighbor to the Nicol family in Brandon, Manitoba. The two families go back.
4:48pm Vancouver is now on the clock. This would have been Wenatchee’s pick, but the Winnipeg Ice (before moving to Wenatchee) went into extreme win-now mode and traded away several years of first-round picks to Vancouver for Zack Ostapchuk (now playing in the San Jose Sharks organization).
4:55pm With the 6th pick of the draft, Vancouver selects Louis Oscar Holowaychuk.
4:56pm Red Deer is next and immediately selects their pick.
4:58pm The Red Deer Rebels, with the 7th pick of the draft, select Nolan Wilitski.
5:02pm Edmonton selects again and takes a second defender. With the 8th pick of the draft, the Oil Kings select Christopher Kokkoris from Yale Academy.
(We're now getting close to Wenatchee’s 10th pick. A few names come up.)
5:04pm The Tri-City Americans use the 9th pick of the draft and select center forward Ben Oliverio.
5:05pm The Wenatchee Wild waste no time and happily select center forward Kalen Mills.
Scouting director Leigh Mendlesohn represents the organization on camera for Wenatchee on the WHL’s live coverage.
5:12pm The Kamloops Blazers use their 11th pick of the draft and select Mateo Ferreira
5:20pm Brandon goes with Cruz Jim with their 12th pick.
5:24pm Crosby Mateychuk goes to Vancouver with the 13th pick.
5:27pm Kamloops selects Teagen Bouchard.
5:29pm We have another trade! The Brandon Wheat Kings trade away the 15th pick to Swift Current.
5:43pm After a long pause, we find out that Swift Current makes yet another trade. During the 14 minutes of downtime, the WHL hosts calmly fill time with goals of the year.
5:45pm: We find out that Swift Current has traded with Saskatoon and will, in return, receive the Blades' 22nd, 72nd, and 93rd picks of this year's draft.
5:48pm Saskatoon uses the 15th pick of the draft and selects Kain Martinuik.
5:52pm The Prince Albert Raiders use the 16th pick: Athens Shingoose. A prairie kid will play for a prairie team.
5:59pm Prince George selects Cohen Baker—a smaller player who compares himself to Stankoven.
6:04pm Moose Jaw selects Kash Elke
6:12pm Victoria use the 19th pick on Roan Greschuk.
6:14pm WIll Kelts goes to Kelowna
6:17pm Seattle selects Brook Haile
6:23pm Swift Current uses Saskatoon’s 22nd pick and selects Cohenn Rotar
6:29pm The Regina Pats use their 3rd pick of the first round and select Logan Henry with the 23rd pick.
The 2025 WHL 2nd Round through the 7th Round will be on Thursday, May 8th
The WHL Prospects draft will resume in the 2nd round an hour after two rounds of the WHL US Prospects draft (the US Prospects draft is two rounds, with an 8am Pacific start time.) All American players who live in the Western United States are eligible. NOTE: WHL coaches and GMs know that some top US prospects will gravitate to BIG-10 hockey (Michigan, Ohio State, Wisconsin, Minnesota, etc.) and the US National Development Program, which plays competitively in the USHL.
The Wild are scheduled to have four picks in the 2nd & 3rd rounds
(Wenatchee’s remaining picks in the 2025 WHL Draft)
Round 2 - 10th pick (33rd overall, obtained from Swift Current)
Round 2 - 19th pick (42nd overall, obtained from Victoria)
Round 3 - 15th pick (61st overall, obtained from Brandon)
Round 3 - 22nd pick (68th overall, obtained from Medicine Hat)
Round 4 - No picks
Round 5 - 6th pick (98th overall)
Round 6 - No picks
Round 7 - No picks
Round 8 - No picks
Round 9 - No picks
Round 10 - 6th pick (213th overall)
Round 11 - 6th pick (236th overall)
Round 12 - 6th pick (259th overall)