Los Angeles selected Caeden Herrington with the 120th overall pick in the 2025 NHL Draft. (Gary A. Vasquez/Los Angeles Kings)
Caeden Herrington was making a quesadilla.
Day 2 of the 2025 NHL Draft was 2½ hours old, the progression of picks now somewhere in the late fourth round. Cory, his father, was downstairs, and he figured his mother, Meg, was in another room. Herrington was in the kitchen. None, notably, were in front of the TV.
This was the Herrington’s draft party. No friends, no extended family, not even Herrington’s older siblings. The TV was on, wherever it was, but not until the mid-third round.
They had done the whole shebang the year prior, when Herrington was draft eligible for the first time out of Holderness with a two-month USHL cameo under his belt, only for the call to never come.
“People always say, don’t sit through the whole thing,” Herrington said. “Because you don’t know.”