Radical change in hockey positions led Fort Saskatchewan’s Keaton Verhoeff to world juniors

Braeden Cootes remembers a very different Keaton Verhoeff.

The pair from just outside Edmonton crossed paths at rinks growing up. Cootes was a forward. Verhoeff suited up as a goaltender.

Their careers would take off and both are now living a dream playing for Canada at the world junior hockey championship. Cootes remains a forward. Verhoeff, however, drastically changed course.

The Fort Saskatchewan, Alta., product hung up his pads, blocker and glove at age 12, shifting from puck-stopper to puck-moving defenceman.

The transition was, at first, a little jarring for Cootes.

"I remember my first time watching him as a player," said the 2025 first-round pick of the Vancouver Canucks. "He would have been 12 or 13 … he was raw, big, could skate. He just loved being out there."

So what led the hulking 17-year-old to pivot from the crease to the blue line? Playing out had always intrigued Verhoeff, and after getting cut from a competitive team, he started doing that as a member of an in-line hockey club for fun. The decision to switch across the board would soon follow.

"I just wanted to be able to impact the game more," said Verhoeff, who's expected to be a high pick at the 2026 NHL draft.

"Looking back at it now, maybe it wasn't the smartest of ideas, but I thought being a defenceman, you could be out there every shift, impacting the game, being able to take the puck and try to create some opportunity offensively, and then also defend as well.

"When you're a goalie, I felt the game really had to come to you. I could just attack the game as a defenceman."

Attack it he has.

The six-foot-four, 212-pound blueliner played parts of two seasons with the Western Hockey League's Victoria Royals before transitioning to the NCAA in