Wyatt Kaiser (born July 31, 2002) is an American professional

ice hockey Ice hockey (or simply hockey in North America) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an Ice rink, ice skating rink with Ice hockey rink, lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. Tw ...

defenseman Defence or defense (in American English) in ice hockey is a player position that is primarily responsible for preventing the opposing team from Goal (ice hockey), scoring. They are often referred to as defencemen, D, D-men or blueliners (the l ...

for the

Chicago Blackhawks The Chicago Blackhawks (spelled Black Hawks until 1986, and known colloquially as the Hawks) are a professional ice hockey team based in Chicago. The Blackhawks compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Central Division (N ...

of the

National Hockey League The National Hockey League (NHL; , ''LNH'') is a professional ice hockey league in North America composed of 32 teams25 in the United States and 7 in Canada. The NHL is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United States and Cana ...

(NHL). Kaiser was drafted 81st overall by the Blackhawks in the 2020 NHL Entry Draft.

Playing career

Kaiser, as a Minnesota native, played high school hockey with Andover Huskies in the

Minnesota State High School League The Minnesota State High School League (MSHSL) is a voluntary, non-profit association for the support and governance of interscholastic activities at high schools in Minnesota, United States. The association supports interscholastic athletics a ...

(USHS). In his final high school year, he joined the

Dubuque Fighting Saints The Dubuque Fighting Saints are a Tier I junior ice hockey team playing in the United States Hockey League (USHL) and are based in the city of Dubuque, Iowa, on the banks of the Mississippi River at the intersection of Iowa, Illinois, and Wis ...

of the

United States Hockey League The United States Hockey League (USHL) is the top junior ice hockey league sanctioned by USA Hockey. The league consists of 16 active teams located in the Midwestern United States and Great Plains, for players between the ages of 16 and 21. Th ...

(USHL) for parts of the 2019–20 season, having committed to a collegiate career with Minnesota Duluth in the

National Collegiate Hockey Conference The National Collegiate Hockey Conference (NCHC) is an NCAA men's Division I hockey conference. The league was formed on July 9, 2011 and began playing for the 2013–14 season, the same season that the Big Ten Conference began competition, as a ...

. Before joining the Bulldogs as a freshman in the

2020–21 The dash is a punctuation mark consisting of a long horizontal line. It is similar in appearance to the hyphen but is longer and sometimes higher from the baseline. The most common versions are the endash , generally longer than the hyphen ...

season, Kaiser was selected in the 2020 NHL Entry Draft, in the third-round, 81st overall, by the Chicago Blackhawks. In his first season with Minnesota-Duluth, Kaiser was leading the blueline in scoring with 10 assists through 28 games before the season was halted due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

. As a result, Kaiser was selected to the NCHC All-Rookie Team. Following his junior season with the Bulldogs in

2022–23 The dash is a punctuation mark consisting of a long horizontal line. It is similar in appearance to the hyphen but is longer and sometimes higher from the baseline. The most common versions are the endash , generally longer than the hyphen ...

, Kaiser opted to conclude his collegiate career by signing a three-year, entry-level contract with the Chicago Blackhawks on March 15, 2023. Reporting directly to the rebuilding Blackhawks roster, Kaiser made his professional and NHL debut in a 4–2 defeat to the

Arizona Coyotes The Arizona Coyotes are an inactive professional ice hockey team based in the Phoenix metropolitan area. They competed in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Central Division (NHL), Central Division (1996–1998, 2021–2024) and ...

on March 18, 2023. He registered his first NHL point, an assist on a goal to Tyler Johnson, in a 4–1 defeat to the

Dallas Stars The Dallas Stars are a professional ice hockey team based in Dallas. The Stars compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Central Division (NHL), Central Division in the Western Conference (NHL), Western Conference. The Stars ...

on March 28, 2023. He completed the season, posting 3 assists through 9 regular season games with Chicago.

International play

Kaiser represented the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

at the

2022 World Junior Ice Hockey Championships The 2022 World Junior Ice Hockey Championships (''2022 WJHC'') was the 46th edition of the Ice Hockey World Junior Championship, held from 9 to 20 August 2022 at Rogers Place in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. The tournament was originally schedul ...

, where he recorded an assist in the opening round-robin game before the tournament was cancelled due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. He later returned for the revised tournament and posted 2 goals and 3 points as Team USA finished out of medal contention in 5th place.

Personal life

Kaiser's younger sister, Madison, plays collegiate hockey at the

University of Minnesota The University of Minnesota Twin Cities (historically known as University of Minnesota) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint ...

. Kaiser’s grandfather, Blane Comstock, was a member of the 1976 Olympic hockey team as a goaltender. Comstock was an All-American at what is now Bemidji State University.

Career statistics

Regular season and playoffs

International

Awards and honors

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Kaiser, Wyatt 2002 births Living people 21st-century American sportsmen Chicago Blackhawks draft picks Chicago Blackhawks players Dubuque Fighting Saints players Ice hockey players from Minnesota Minnesota Duluth Bulldogs men's ice hockey players Rockford IceHogs (AHL) players