Casey Jay Wellman (born October 18, 1987) is an American professional

ice hockey Ice hockey (or simply hockey) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an ice skating rink with lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. In ice hockey, two opposing teams use ice h ...

center Center or centre may refer to: Mathematics *Center (geometry), the middle of an object * Center (algebra), used in various contexts ** Center (group theory) ** Center (ring theory) * Graph center, the set of all vertices of minimum eccentrici ...

currently playing with

Oulun Kärpät Oulun Kärpät (Finnish for "Oulu Ermines", sometimes referred to as Kärpät Oulu) is a Finnish professional ice hockey team based in Oulu and playing in the top-tier Finnish Liiga. Kärpät have won the Finnish championship title eight times, ...

of the Finnish

Liiga The SM-liiga (marketed as just Liiga from 2013 on), (Finnish for ''League'') colloquially called the Finnish Elite League in English or FM-ligan in Swedish, is the top professional ice hockey league in Finland. It is one of the six founding lea ...

Playing career

As a youth, Wellman played in the 2001

Quebec International Pee-Wee Hockey Tournament The Quebec International Pee-Wee Hockey Tournament (french: Tournoi international de hockey pee-wee de Québec) is an annual minor ice hockey event in Quebec City. The tournament was founded in 1960 to coincide with the Quebec Winter Carnival, ...

with the San Jose Junior Sharks

minor ice hockey Minor hockey is an umbrella term for amateur ice hockey which is played below the junior age level. Players are classified by age, with each age group playing in its own league. The rules, especially as it relates to body contact, vary from c ...

team. A native of Brentwood, California, while in high school, Wellman played hockey at

Cranbrook Kingswood School (''In The Right Way Quickly'') , established = , closed = , type = Independent , religious_affiliation = Methodist , president = , head_label = Headmaste ...

in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, winning state titles in 2004 and 2006. He then attended the

University of Massachusetts Amherst The University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMass Amherst, UMass) is a public research university in Amherst, Massachusetts and the sole public land-grant university in Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Founded in 1863 as an agricultural college, ...

for two years where he played on the

UMass Minutemen ice hockey The UMass Minutemen Ice Hockey team is a National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I men's college ice hockey program that represents the University of Massachusetts Amherst. The Minutemen are a member of Hockey East. They play at ...

team. He was signed to a two-year entry level contract on March 16, 2010, as a college free-agent. On February 3, 2012, Wellman was traded to the

New York Rangers The New York Rangers are a professional ice hockey team based in the New York City borough of Manhattan. They compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Metropolitan Division in the Eastern Conference. The team plays its home ...

for center

Erik Christensen Erik Christensen (born December 17, 1983) is a Canadian former professional ice hockey centre who last played for HV71 of the Swedish Hockey League (SHL). Playing career Christensen was drafted by the Pittsburgh Penguins in the third round (69t ...

and a conditional 7th round draft pick in 2013. He spent the remainder of the 2011–12 season with the Whale, but after Connecticut was eliminated from the AHL playoffs, Wellman was added to the Rangers' playoff roster. On July 20, 2012, Wellman was traded to the Florida Panthers in exchange for a 2014 5th round draft pick. He started the

2012–13 1 (one, unit, unity) is a number representing a single or the only entity. 1 is also a numerical digit and represents a single unit of counting or measurement. For example, a line segment of ''unit length'' is a line segment of length 1. I ...

season with AHL affiliate, the

San Antonio Rampage The San Antonio Rampage were a professional ice hockey team in the American Hockey League based in San Antonio, Texas. The Rampage was primarily owned by Spurs Sports & Entertainment throughout the team's existence. In 2020, the franchise was sold ...

before he was traded by the Panthers to the

Washington Capitals The Washington Capitals (colloquially known as the Caps) are a professional ice hockey team based in Washington, D.C. The team competes in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Metropolitan Division in the Eastern Conference, a ...

in exchange for forward

Zach Hamill Zachary Robert Hamill (born September 23, 1988) is a Canadian professional ice hockey centre who is currently playing for EC Bad Nauheim of the DEL2. Hamill was drafted in the first round, eighth overall by the National Hockey League (NHL)'s Bos ...

on January 31, 2013. Wellman was called up to the Capitals on December 17, 2013. He was reassigned to the AHL

Hershey Bears The Hershey Bears are a professional ice hockey team based in Hershey, Pennsylvania, a town located 14 miles east of the state capital of Harrisburg. The current Bears club has played in the American Hockey League since the 1938–39 season maki ...

on December 23, 2013. He was recalled a second time to the

on January 24, 2014 in time to play with the Capitals as they faced Montreal. Wellman scored a goal off of an assist from Capitals captain Alex Ovechkin in the second period and helped the team end a seven-game losing streak. On June 4, 2015,

HC Spartak Moscow HC Spartak Moscow (russian: ХК Спартак Москва, en, Spartak Moskva) is a professional ice hockey team based in Moscow, Russia. They played in the Tarasov Division of the Kontinental Hockey League during the 2013–14 season. Howe ...

of the

KHL The Kontinental Hockey League (KHL; russian: Континентальная хоккейная лига (КХЛ), Kontinental'naya khokkeynaya liga) is an international professional ice hockey league founded in 2008. It comprises member clubs b ...

announced that it has signed Wellman. He saw the ice in 40 games, tallying eight goals and eight assists for Spartak. Upon the conclusion of the 2015–16 season, Wellman moved on to Sweden, penning a one-year deal with SHL side Frölunda HC on May 30, 2016. After two seasons in the

National League The National League of Professional Baseball Clubs, known simply as the National League (NL), is the older of two leagues constituting Major League Baseball (MLB) in the United States and Canada, and the world's oldest extant professional team ...

with Swiss club,

SC Rapperswil-Jona Lakers The SC Rapperswil-Jona Lakers are a professional ice hockey club from Rapperswil, Switzerland and are members of the National League. History The Lakers were founded in 1945 and were known as SC Rapperswil-Jona until 2005, when the club change ...

, Wellman returned to the KHL in signing a one-year contract with Chinese based,

HC Kunlun Red Star HC Kunlun Red Star () is a Chinese ice hockey club that joined the Kontinental Hockey League (KHL) prior to the 2016–17 season. History Preparation of the team In March 2016, representatives of Kunlun Red Star and the KHL signed a protocol o ...

, on September 16, 2020. With Kunlun later stationed in Russia for the duration of 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 b ...

season due to logistics surrounding the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...

, Wellman contributed with 13 points through 31 regular season games. Wellman left the KHL as a free agent and was signed to a two-year contract with Finnish club, Oulun Kärpät of the Liiga, on May 28, 2021.

Family

Wellman is the son of former

Giants A giant is a being of human appearance, sometimes of prodigious size and strength, common in folklore. Giant(s) or The Giant(s) may also refer to: Mythology and religion *Giants (Greek mythology) *Jötunn, a Germanic term often translated as 'gi ...

infielder Brad Wellman.

Career statistics

Awards and honors

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Wellman, Casey 1987 births Living people American men's ice hockey centers Ice hockey players from California People from Brentwood, California People from Castro Valley, California Cedar Rapids RoughRiders players Connecticut Whale (AHL) players Frölunda HC players Hershey Bears players Houston Aeros (1994–2013) players HC Kunlun Red Star players Minnesota Wild players SC Rapperswil-Jona Lakers players San Antonio Rampage players Sportspeople from Castro Valley, California HC Sochi players HC Spartak Moscow players UMass Minutemen ice hockey players Undrafted National Hockey League players Washington Capitals players