Spokane’s Kailer Yamamoto excited to be member of ‘hometown team’ after signing with Seattle Kraken

By Wednesday afternoon, when the dust around his offseason movement had settled, Kailer Yamamoto was enjoying an outing with friends at a familiar place: a golf course in his hometown of Spokane.

His game that day was “up and down,” Yamamoto said, by phone from Downriver Golf Course. Some bogies, some birdies.

But having signed a contract with the Seattle Kraken just a few days earlier, Yamamoto was in good spirits regardless of where his shots were landing because his status for the next National Hockey League season was finally known.

And in the end, the 24-year-old winger said, the fit of playing in Seattle couldn’t be much better.

“To be playing (near) where I played juniors, it was kind of a no-brainer,” he said.

From 2014 to 2018, Yamamoto played for the Spokane Chiefs in the Western Hockey League and made his debut for the Edmonton Oilers – the franchise that drafted him – in the middle of that time, on Nov. 5, 2017.

Across 244 regular-season games with the Oilers, Yamamoto scored 50 goals and assisted on 68 more. In 34 playoff games, he added three goals and nine assists, getting as far as the Western Conference Final in 2022. He signed a new two-year, $6.2 million contract with Edmonton the following August.

But on June 29, the Oilers traded Yamamoto and Klim Kostin to the Detroit Red Wings for future considerations, making the deal something of a salary-cap reduction exercise for Edmonton.

A day later, Detroit chose to buy out the remaining year of Yamamoto’s contract for one-third of the remaining value, according to CapFriendly.com, making him a free agent.

Yamamoto talked through the options with his agent and said he had interest from Seattle, Nashville, Toronto and Edmonton. On July 2, he decided to accept the Kraken’s deal for one year at $1.5 million.

Personally, it made a lot of sense: his girlfriend has family there, he said, and his parents, who still live in Spokane, were “ecstatic.”

“My dad was like, ‘I’ve got to go buy a new jersey,’ and my mom was thrilled,” Yamamoto said. “It’s so much easier to travel to Seattle (than Edmonton).”

From a hockey standpoint, Yamamoto is joining a young franchise that advanced to the second round of the Western Conference playoffs in just its second year.

“You saw their run in the playoffs,” Yamamoto said. “They’re a very deep team.”

Among the three Spokane-born players in the NHL, Yamamoto ranks third in points (118), trailing 36-year-old Derek Ryan (191), his former teammate in Edmonton, and 32-year-old Tyler Johnson (400), a former Stanley Cup winner in Tampa Bay who now plays for the Chicago Blackhawks.

As a one-year contract, this is something of a prove-it deal for Yamamoto. But he’s been in this spot before, just two years ago, and he responded with a 41-point season, his most productive so far.

“It’s kind of like that one-year deal I had with Edmonton (in 2021-22),” Yamamoto said. “Just give it everything I’ve got. I can’t hold back. I’m just trying to prove myself.

“I’m super excited to be playing for them. They’re basically my hometown team. I can’t ask more than that.”