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work for. So, we're doing a lot of video scouting right now just to refresh our minds for the October draft." "Cutting the season short had a negative impact, I'm sure, on most teams. A nd they were looking for- ward to watching a lot of the play- ers that they liked the most playing playoffs. We just didn't get the live viewings leading up to the draft as we normally would. So hopefully, we got to see the kids that we like a lot, more than just a few times before it all stopped. But the play- ing field is level." Patience, Hard Work Paying Off Kaiser didn't come into the year as a projected second- or third-round pick. Scouts say he was USA Hockey's fourth or fifth best defenseman at last summer's Hlinka Gretzky Cup, but he continued to soar all year and his stock rose sharply the last two to three months of the Huskies' season. "I really started to get noticed coming out of bantams," Kaiser said. "It was in bantams I feel like everybody was still worried about scouts, and at one point I was kind of like, 'I don't really care anymore. I'm just trying to play to have fun because I love the game, trying to get better.' As soon as I started thinking like that, I just started playing, I think things started just going right. Started getting a little bit better mindset, and I grew a little bit." Kaiser's sophomore year of high school, he says he was about 5-foot-5. Now, he's nearly 6-foot. "So that helps for sure," said Kaiser, who grew up trying to emulate the Chicago Blackhawks' Duncan Keith. "But my high school coach just said, 'Just learn what you can. Don't look too far in the future. Believe you're going to be really good player.' And I did. I just kept working, kept trying to learn things about the game. You never can know enough. And then it was that first U-16 year, national camp was when all the scouts started coming." A nd the scouts really like his game because he can do a little bit of every thing. "He's very cerebral," Brackett said. "Outside of hockey, I think he thinks a lot and processes, and that's how he plays the game, too. He's got a really good brain, good feet, he plays with poise. I think that's why he can go to Dubuque to play junior hockey, he's able to step right in seamlessly, then come back to his high school team and lead by example. I think when he gets to Duluth, you'll start to see because he can move the puck so efficiently that his offense will start to come." 28 Russo's Rants M H J ON L I N E . C O M | O C T O B E R 2 0 2 0 Photos / Vintage MN Hockey, BSU Athletics Wyatt Kaiser's grandfather, Blane Comstock, was a goaltender on the 1976 U.S. Olympic Team and a three-time All- American at Bemidji State.