There are some legendary hockey ties in Dakoda Rh\u00e9aume-Mullen\u2019s family.<\/p>\n
His mother, Manon Rh\u00e9aume, made history as the first woman to sign a professional hockey contract and to play in an NHL game, appearing in preseason games with the Tampa Bay Lightning in 1992 and \u201993.<\/p>\n
And his uncle, Pascal Rh\u00e9aume, won a Stanley Cup with the New Jersey Devils in 2003.<\/p>\n
\u201cHockey was kind of like my first love. Like, it\u2019s everything,\u201d said Dakoda, a free-agent invite to this year\u2019s Penguins Prospect Development Camp. \u201cIt started with just playing mini sticks with my brother, my cousins, and everyone. I was just always on the ice with my family and going to tournaments for my brother and for my mom. It\u2019s just always been a part of me.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was at those tournaments that Dakoda began to realize the magnitude of Manon\u2019s impact on the game, as she is a trailblazer and one of the most influential figures in women\u2019s hockey history. In addition to her professional stints, she backstopped the Canadian women\u2019s national team to a silver medal at the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan. She also won two gold medals at the IIHF Women\u2019s World Championship.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen she was coaching girls hockey, we’d go to the rink and there’d be a bunch of little girls going up to her asking her for pictures and her autographs,\u201d Dakoda said. \u201cAnd then especially too, my brother going to his (Quebec International Pee-Wee Hockey Tournament), it was cool just seeing all the people in Quebec come up to her, whether to say hi or ask her for pictures.\u201d<\/p>\n
For the past four seasons, she has worked as a hockey operations and prospects advisor for the Los Angeles Kings while based in Michigan. Now, she begins a new chapter in her career, having been named General Manager of PWHL Detroit earlier this month, one of the four newest expansion teams.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor her, it\u2019s kind of like a full-circle moment now with there being a professional women\u2019s league,\u201d Dakoda said. \u201cShe\u2019s having a lot of fun, and it\u2019s really cool to see. She\u2019s also super competitive. Her trying to build a competitive team is fun for me to watch, too.\u201d<\/p>\n
As if that wasn\u2019t motivating enough for Dakoda to take his hockey career to the next level, he is also inspired by his uncle, who took an unconventional route to eventually becoming a Stanley Cup Champion.<\/p>\n
Entering the league in 1996-97 as an undrafted forward, Pascal Rheaume bounced between four organizations before finding his footing as a depth center with the New Jersey Devils in 2002-03, and he would go on to play over 300 NHL games.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was in the same kind of spot,\u201d Dakoda said. \u201cHe had to earn it all the way up. He kind of had a bumpy road, but eventually he got to that team and ended up winning a Stanley Cup and had a long pro career.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI think just sharing stories with him, and, again, learning from him through his career is something that I can have the luxury of doing.\u201d<\/p>\n
While the 19-year-old did not hear his name called this year, he already had a contingency plan in place.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf I didn\u2019t get picked, (the Penguins) said that they would offer me a spot here. So, after the draft, we made the decision to come here,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
With Manon having an 11-year tenure as the Girls’ Division Director with the Little Caesars AAA (LCAAA) Hockey Club, Dakoda has grown up in the Detroit area.<\/p>\n
He has spent the last two seasons at the University of Michigan, the same team that 2025 first-round pick Will\u00a0Horcoff is a part of. Tyler Duke also joins Rh\u00e9aume-Mullen as a free-agent invitee who also plays for the Wolverines.<\/p>\n
Stepping into a brand-new environment on short notice can be challenging, but for both Rh\u00e9aume-Mullen and Duke, it is comforting to know they have a familiar face in Horcoff to help them learn more about the Penguins organization.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s my roommate at college, so we hang out a bunch,\u201d Rh\u00e9aume-Mullen said. \u201cHe\u2019s kind of helped me along here with getting to know everyone, and just kind of taking me through it.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the past two seasons, the left-handed defenseman has recorded 27 points (7G-20A) in 75 NCAA games. While Rh\u00e9aume-Mullen loves watching defensemen like Cale Makar and Quinn Hughes, he tries to model his game after Gustav Forsling \u2013 a steady, reliable shutdown defenseman.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust his two-way game and how he\u2019s able to defend at six-foot,\u201d Dakoda said. \u201cJake Sanderson, too, just with his skating and how he uses it to defend, create offense off the rush, stuff like that. Those are two guys that I can kind of learn from.\u201d<\/p>\n
While receiving an invitation to Development Camp is a step in the right direction for Rh\u00e9aume-Mullen\u2019s career, he knows that the grind doesn\u2019t stop there.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think just how competitive I am, how driven I am, and how much better I can get in the next couple of years, because I\u2019m going to be a free agent now,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m going to have to earn everything.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There are some legendary hockey ties in Dakoda Rh\u00e9aume-Mullen\u2019s family. His mother, Manon Rh\u00e9aume, made history as the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":233877,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[73,75,74],"class_list":["post-233876","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233876","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=233876"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233876\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/233877"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=233876"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=233876"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=233876"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}