Plymouth Whalers’ Josh Wesley drafted by Carolina Hurricanes, his father’s team: ‘There’s going to be a little pressure, playing under his banner’

PHILADELPHIA — Josh Wesley wears 20 for the Plymouth Whalers and is eager to work toward creating Wesley 2.0 with the Carolina Hurricanes.

Following in the footsteps of a former-NHLer father with a legacy with a franchise can redefine fraught. At the 2011 NHL draft, Keegan Lowe, the son of Kevin Lowe, asked the Edmonton Oilers not to draft him. On Saturday, though, Wesley, who held the Stanley Cup on the ice in 2006 after his dad Glen Wesley won with the Hurricanes in 2006, had no reservation about extending the family tie. Carolina took him with its No. 96 overall pick in the fourth round.

"I hope I can I do [hold the Cup] again, but I got to make the team first," a grinning Wesley. "When the 'Canes won in '06 I had tears running down my face because I felt the sense of how hard it is to win the Cup. To play on the team, I'll work my tail off.

"There's going to be a little pressure, playing under his banner," adds Wesley, whose father's No. 2 sweater has been retired by Carolina. "I'm going to make my own player out of myself and I'm going to work hard all the time. We're two different people and I'm going to play my own game and he played his own game.

The younger Wesley, who moved to defence at age 13, is more defensive-minded than his dad was at the same stage. (Glen Wesley, back in the bad ol' days of run-and-gun junior hockey, once had 91 points for a WHL title-winning Portland Winterhawks team.) The comparisons are going to be inevitable, but Josh, who is a rugged 6-foot-2 1/2 and 194 pounds, is ready to run with it.

My mom [Barb Wesley] would say — and a lot of people say — we skate exactly the same," Wesley said. "He was a little more offensive when he was younger. I think he'll tell me that I'm a little smarter defensively than he was at the same age.

"He was a very special player who played 20 years. Even to get that opportunity would be amazing. I'm going to be proving that I can be my own player."

Wesley's selection was also personally significant for reasons beyond his father's legacy with the Hurricanes. It's also a coup for youth hockey in North Carolina, where he played before moving to Michigan at age 16, first to play with the U.S. under-17 team before leaping to the OHL's Whalers this past season.

"My coaches, Colin Muldoon, Michael O'Leary, and many others, they helped me through so much," Wesley said. "Colin is the one who put me on the D to start. They're always going to be there for you. To get here from Raleigh really speaks volumes about how they work with guys.

"Being excited wasn't just because of my dad," Wesley added. "Growing up, everything I had Hurricanes stuff ... I'm just so happy."

This spring, Mike Vellucci was hired as the 'Canes GM, moving from the Peter Karmanos-owned OHL team to the Karmonos-owned NHL club. Wesley was the second of two Whalers taken by Carolina. The first, Alex Nedeljkovic, is already a two-year No. 1 netminder and the reigning OHL goaltender of the year. Wesley had a much more perilous path to becoming a draft pick. He faced a steep learning curve as a 17-year-old rookie with the Whalers. Over the full run of a season, he eventually settled into being a reliable stay-at-home defenceman who could use his long reach and intuition to cover for his still-developing agility.

"Through everything, Coach Vellucci always saw that I pushed myself through everything," Wesley said. "He is a great coach and we're really proud of him making the leap up to assistant general manager."

Neate Sager is a writer for Yahoo! Canada Sports. Follow him on Twitter @neatebuzzthenet.