As development camp opens for the Pittsburgh Penguins at the UPMC Lemieux Sports Complex in Cranberry, Pennsylvania, dozens of draftees, prospects, and hopefuls will take to the ice for a five-day camp which culminates with the prospect tournament at noon on Friday.

This year’s camp roster is headlined by first-round picks like Will Horcoff (though he is injured for now), and the Ruck twins Liam and Marcus, who were the first two selections the Penguins made at this past weekend’s NHL Draft. Most of the players appearing during the five-day event are either draftees or otherwise part of the Penguins organization.

But over a dozen players skating this week at the team’s practice facility are undrafted free agents, looking to make a name for themselves in front of an audience. Per DK Pittsburgh Sports, one of those undrafted free agent invitees is Dakoda Rhéaume-Mullen.

Dakoda is the son of Manon Rhéaume, a pioneer in the sport of hockey. In 1992, a 20-year-old Rhéaume became the first (and to date, only) woman to ever suit up in a National Hockey League game. Just months after backstopping her native Canada to a IIHF World Championship, Rhéaume signed a contract with the Tampa Bay Lightning and made an appearance during one of the team’s preseason games that year.

She played one period for the Lightning against the St. Louis Blues, making seven saves on nine shots. When she took the net, Rhéaume became the first woman to play in any of the big four leagues in North America. The following year, she appeared in another preseason game for Tampa Bay, facing the Boston Bruins.

Playing as the only woman in a league wasn’t new to her. The year prior, Rhéaume was signed by the Trois-Rivières Draveurs of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League, becoming the first woman to play in a major junior game.

While many might know Rhéaume for her preseason work, her career is far more decorated than just an NHL stint. Following her first game with the Lightning, Rhéaume earned a deal in the International Hockey League, where he played in two regular season games for the Atlanta Knights.

Future professional stops included stints in the East Coast Hockey League and West Coast Hockey League before she won a silver medal for Canada at the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano.

Even after her retirement as a player, she stayed involved in both the men’s and women’s game. She dropped the puck at the first ever National Women’s Hockey League game (the precursor to the present-day Professional Women’s Hockey League), played as a goaltender during the 2022 NHL All Star Game, and worked in the front office of the Los Angeles Kings before being named the general manager of the PWHL’s new franchise in Detroit.

Rhéaume comes from a big hockey family, which has extended to her sons. Her eldest, Dylan St. Cyr, played college hockey at Notre Dame, Quinnipiac, and Michigan State, before turning pro in France. Meanwhile, her youngest, Dakoda Rhéaume-Mullen, is now here in Pittsburgh with the Penguins this week.

Rhéaume-Mullen was first eligible to go in last year’s NHL Draft. He went undrafted, but NHL teams have certainly kept an eye on him. Last year, the left-shot defenseman skated at Buffalo’s development camp, where the Sabres really liked him.

“He was a player that our scouts tracked,” Adam Mair, director of player development for the Sabres, said last year. “We wanted to make sure that we were able to get to him quickly so we could get him to camp because we really think he’s got a lot of potential.”

Rhéaume-Mullen turned the pain of going undrafted into a drive to further prove his skills. After his stop in Buffalo, he went back to college hockey, where he doubled his production from last year.

“The thing that sticks with me is, everyone does a lot, especially when you get to older levels, and it’s about who’s going to do more,” Rheaume-Mullen said while with the Sabres last summer. “How are you going to get that extra advantage when there’s a day you feel like (garbage) or your legs are heavy. How are you still going to dominate and be the best player on the ice? So just all those little habits add up, too.”

Unfortunately for Rhéaume-Mullen, he went undrafted last weekend as well. Draft rankings had him all over the place, ranked anywhere from 105 to 223. For the 19-year-old, surely a redo of last summer could be rather frustrating. He’s essentially in the same place he was last year.

But, he is coming off a season at the University of Michigan where he scored four goals and added 14 assists (18 points) in 40 games from the blue line. There, with the Wolverines, Rhéaume-Mullen was teammates with last year’s 24th overall pick by the Penguins, Will Horcoff. Scouting reports described him as an agile defenseman who was improving on his shutdown skills, while needing work on special elements of his game.

But now with the Penguins, he has a chance to establish himself as someone worthy of a contract, and eventually perhaps an NHL job. Going undrafted is far from a death sentence to one’s NHL hopes; last season alone, five undrafted players took the ice for the Penguins.

Rhéaume-Mullen also has a relative who lived that very life. His uncle (Manon’s younger brother) Pascal Rhéaume played over 300 games in the NHL and won a Stanley Cup in New Jersey in 2003. Now, Dakoda is looking to one day make the league both his uncle and mother played in.