2 weeks Ago
FRISCO, Tex. — Bill La Forge’s first impression of Radim Mrtka was a simple one. “He’s unbelievable,” the Seattle Thunderbirds general manager said to himself in early December, a couple of weeks after Mrtka left Czechia for the Pacific Northwest.
“(He’s) 6-foot-6, 215 pounds, moves very well, passes the puck well, shoots it well, defends better than I thought he would with his long reach, uses his stick very well. I’ll be surprised if he doesn’t climb into the top 10.” Advertisement Five months later, that first impression has proven to be the right one.
After registering 35 points in 43 games on a low-scoring, bottom-of-the-standings Thunderbirds team following the move from Trinec’s professional club, NHL Central Scouting ranked Mrtka fifth among all North American skaters and second among defensemen eligible for the 2025 NHL Draft when they released their final list. Despite missing 25 of Seattle’s games in the WHL, he still led the team in scoring at season’s end. And though he was a rookie and jumped right into the league after it was already underway, his 0.
81 points per game still led all draft-eligible WHL defensemen. All of this at that aforementioned height (though NHL Central Scouting lists him a smidge lower than La Forge said at 6-foot-5.75 and 207 pounds, their listing still makes him one of the biggest players in the draft).
On Wednesday, when Czechia opened the U18 worlds against the host Americans at Comerica Center in Frisco, Tex., Mrtka was their No. 1 defenseman there, too.
On his first shift of the second period, he went end-to-end to score and tie the game 1-1. Radim Mrtka with a great individual effort. #U18MensWorlds #2025NHLDraft pic.
twitter.com/GRobqzapEc — Czech Prospects (@CZprospects) April 24, 2025 Throughout, multiple scouts in attendance commented on how much bigger, faster and stronger he was than his peers. By game’s end, he’d led both teams in time on ice, logging 24:10 in a 4-2 loss where the Czechs led the Americans into the final minutes.
“He’s big, he’s physical, he’s a two-way D who can handle the puck, he’s got speed and he’s very good defensively,” said Czech assistant coach Jaroslav Nedved, the team’s D coach, postgame. “He’s got a long stick, he plays between the dots, he’s good in corners and he’s our top D. (And) his skating helps him a lot because if you’re tall and you’re heavy and you’re not a good skater, you’re not going to be good in transition up and down.
He is, and it’s a big advantage. For his size, he’s a great skater.” Advertisement The sum of those things has increasingly made him a hot topic of conversation in this class.
Earlier in the year, scouts debated who the second-best D prospect in the draft was after Matthew Schaefer. Now they might have their answer. La Forge first saw Mrtka play last season and was immediately drawn to how unique he was.
After talking to his agent, CAA’s Ales Volek, they knew he was going to start the year in Czechia’s top pro league and decided to take a calculated risk and select him with the No. 71 pick in the second round of the CHL Import Draft, believing that it’s a hard league for a 17-year-old defenseman and maybe, just maybe, they could circle back and get him. “We didn’t interfere with him at all until they called us and thought it might be a good opportunity,” La Forge said.
“It was kind of a long play but we were patient and it paid off for us. He’s going to be special.” Mrtka said he wanted to start the season in Seattle, but because he was under contract with Trinec, he needed a reason to work on a release with the club so that he could go to the WHL.
When they stopped playing him, he said he went to the club and said, “Yeah, it’s time.” He made his WHL debut at the end of November after traveling from Czechia, not skating for five days, taking the ice for one morning skate and jumping right into a game against the Victoria Royals. Seattle won the game 3-2 in a shootout.
Mrtka played 28:13, tops on his new team, and was “one of the best players on the ice and just controlled the game while he was out there,” according to Thunderbirds head coach Matt O’Dette. Though his English needed work when he first arrived (O’Dette said “it’s not great but it’s not bad either”), the Thunderbirds also had a fellow Czech Matej Pekar (now also a teammate with the national team) as their other import player this year. Mrtka said Pekar proved helpful during his transition period.
Advertisement “I thought I was great at English but then I arrived there and it was just next level for me,” Mrtka said, shaking his head. “(Pekar) really helped me and it was great to have another Czech guy in Seattle.” They initially hoped to billet together but there wasn’t space for him at Pekar’s billet home, so Mrtka was placed elsewhere.
Still, Pekar, who spent three years in Switzerland practicing his English before he went to Seattle, was able to help him translate around the rink in the early days. “It’s always good to have one guy who speaks your mother language and we’ve been friends for a long time. He helps me and I help him,” Pekar said.
“It’s tough when sometimes you don’t understand what all of the guys are asking you and you can’t just talk with the boys all the time. If you have someone that can translate or understand a little better and it helps you literally every single day and before you know it you know everything they’re asking you.” All told, O’Dette said, “he’s a really good kid who has fit in seamlessly with our team.
” Nedved, a longtime coach and player in Czechia and the brother of former NHLer Petr Nedved, has also enjoyed working with him with the national team. “He’s very humble, he’s good to work with, he listens, he asks and always wants to know deeper, he’s very coachable, and he knows how to play. I really like working with him,” Nedved said.
Looking back on his season now, Mrtka is happy with the move to Seattle and said he “would like to come back” to the Thunderbirds next year, crediting them for the big minutes they gave him right away. He describes himself as a “two-way player who wants to be everywhere.” Asked about his impressive skating ability for his size, he said he didn’t always have it and he’d never really even worked on his skating until he made the move from his childhood team of Havlíčkův Brod to Třinec at 15.
It was with Třinec, a much bigger club, that he first began working on skills training. Advertisement Some of it does come naturally, though — and from a background in soccer. He played soccer until he made that move at 15 and his club back home was too far away to continue to do both (he also didn’t want to risk injury).
On the ice, O’Dette said that background shows in both his skating and his poise. “To say that he was a nice addition for us is putting it mildly,” O’Dette said. “He’s super smart and poised with the way he plays the game.
He’s very smooth getting around the ice and his poise with the puck is really, really good. I was about to say elite and I want to say elite but sooner than later it will be elite. For a guy that size that can move the way he can and see the ice and be able to move the puck, you don’t see that very often.
” Top photo: Brian Liesse / Seattle Thunderbirds.
