Seattle Kraken prospects Jagger Firkus, Carson Rehkopf, and Jani Nyman are at the forefront of their respective leagues in scoring this season. As of the date of this post, Firkus is third in the WHL in goals (24) and third in points (49) after leading in both categories for weeks. Rehkopf leads the OHL in goals (29) and points (50). Nyman is tied for the lead in goals (13) in Liiga–the highest-level professional league in Finland. 

It is certainly fair to be excited by this production. But what do these point totals really mean? What do they portend for each player’s NHL timeline and production? Have these players taken a meaningful step forward from where they had been previously? And what can we learn from looking at comparable players? Let’s highlight these players’ performances to date and then dig into these questions to help set expectations for Firkus, Rehkopf, and Nyman moving forward.

Projecting an NHL future using comparable players

Prospect evaluation is multi-faceted, and no one factor predominates. How do you compare a player boasting a heavy, accurate shot and a hulking frame but a questionable skating stride and limited puck-handling skill against a smaller player with averaging skating and high-end puck skills?

There is no “right” answer, but three factors that are often used create a baseline are: (1) age, (2) scoring points, and (3) league context. A player who scores more at a younger age or in a more difficult league might be expected to have stronger chances at a productive NHL future.

NHL prospects play in a heterogeneous landscape. Some play in Canadian junior leagues (of varying quality). Some play for United States colleges. Others play in junior or professional leagues in Europe. How do we compare point production and make projections of future performance across these contexts?

One approach is to look at the historical trajectories of peer group players–those who scored at a similar rate at a similar age in the same league environment. This can give us a sense of the timeline and probability of “success” (however defined) for individuals that produced like these three prospects early in their careers. I’ll start with this approach before considering whether another approach–an NHL equivalency (“NHLe”) model–yields any additional insights.

Jagger Firkus | 19 years old | WHL | 1.92 points per game

Firkus has scored 24 goals and 25 assists in 26 games as a 19-year-old in the WHL this season–a pace of 1.92 points per game. I defined Firkus’s peer group as WHL player seasons from the 2017-18, 2018-19, and 2019-20 seasons in which the comparable players (1) scored at least 1.5 points per game and (2) were listed as age 19 by Elite Prospects.

Approach

Why did I focus on 2017-2020? I didn’t go farther back because league scoring contexts evolve over time and older seasons may be less predictive. I opted against extending to include data from the COVID-shortened 2020-2021 season. And the vast majority of the prospects from the most recent two years are still developing and won’t provide much information on the likelihood of a player becoming an NHL regular.

As Kraken GM Ron Francis explained shortly after the 2023 draft, the typical timeline for a a successful drafted prospect is another two years in his current league followed by a year or two in the AHL.

Why did I set the cutoff at 1.5 points per game? I experimented with using a higher point cutoff but opted against it for two reasons. First, odds are Firkus’s point production will regress at least a bit as the season continues, so a lower threshold may give us a fairer read of his likely future outcomes. Second, higher thresholds didn’t meaningfully change any of my conclusions. In other words (unexpectedly) players scoring two points per game at the CHL level haven’t gone on to have materially different careers than those scoring 1.5 points, at least in my sample.

Finally, why didn’t I use the entire CHL for my list of comparable players? Two reasons. First, there is a (potentially growing) disparity in the relative scoring difficulty of the three leagues, as evidenced by the NHLe work of Thibaud Chatel. Second, expanding to include the entire CHL, which I tested, did not meaningfully alter the probabilities described below anyway.

Results

Across these three seasons, 16 different 19-year-olds from the WHL have scored 1.5+ points per game in that league.

The large majority of these players, 14-of-16, have gone on to play NHL games. Exactly half have been an NHL lineup regularly, logging 100+ NHL games already within this five-year time.

More than two-thirds of the players, 11-of-16, have scored at a rate of greater than .25 points per game while at the NHL level, which I’ll use as a stand-in for passable, bottom-of-the-lineup NHL production. This rate is equivalent to more than 20 points in a full 82-game NHL season. It approximates the rate at which Kailer Yamamoto is scoring for the Kraken this season.

One-quarter of the comparable players, 4-of-16, have scored at a rate greater than .4 points per game in the NHL–equivalent to 33 points in a full 82-game NHL season. For reference, this is somewhere between the projected point production of Yanni Gourde and Alex Wennberg this year. In other words, one-in-four of Firkus’s comparables have emerged as middle-six contributors over this three-to-five-year timeline. (One, Dylan Cozens, has shown top-of-the-lineup production.)

In a quite revealing turn, two of Firkus’s 16 comparables are Yamamoto himself and Kole Lind. Each are intriguing points for comparison because they showed the ability to score at lower levels, but, like Firkus, each have a trait that could hold them back.

For Lind, he has not yet been able to overcome his low-end play speed. He has racked up points at the AHL level but has not risen to the top of Seattle’s depth chart for even a cup of coffee in the NHL recently.

Similar to Firkus, Yamamoto’s challenge is his slight stature. He has been able to overcome it and carve out an NHL role so far, but his career at the highest level remains on a knife’s edge. Three years from now, one could easily imagine a regular top-nine role for him, or, on on the other hand, a European professional career.

Conclusions

Looking at players who have produced similar to Firkus underscores that significant uncertainty remains whether Firkus will emerge as a regular top-nine NHL contributor. Only about one-in-four players like him have done so in the recent past. At the same time, there is a strong indication that Firkus is bound for at least some form of pro future. Only two of 16 players who have produced like him in the WHL fail to reach the NHL at all.

There is reason for optimism with Firkus because he has continued to make progress as a point producer year-over-year. Scouts tend to become discouraged on a player only if the forward momentum stops, and this is not the case with the Irma, Alberta native. After two seasons producing at a point-per-game level, Firkus has leaped forward this year. This has led some point-based models to put impressive NHL comparables on Firkus.

Kraken coach Dave Hakstol highlighted Firkus’s progress before Seattle’s game Thursday in Toronto. “The lasting [impression of Firkus] for me is improvement from one year to the next. You see that from training camp to training camp,” Hakstol said. “Going back this year to Moose Jaw and having the opportunity to be a premiere player, he’s taken advantage of that.”

To understand better whether Firkus’s production this year should elevate our view of Firkus as a prospect, I re-ran this comparable player exercise based on Firkus’s age 18 season. I used WHL players scoring more than one point per game as an 18-year-old. The results were not nearly as positive. Less than 50 percent of players in that sample reached the NHL and only one in eight have produced at a level befitting a top-nine regular.

In other words, Firkus’s progress this season has essentially doubled his projected chances of reaching the NHL and becoming a middle-six (or better) contributor.

A footnote on David Goyette

Before moving on to look at Rehkopf and Nyman, I should note that much of the same analysis stated above applies to Kraken forward prospect David Goyette. Similarly slight in stature, the 19-year-old Goyette has not gotten the same publicity as Firkus this year but he has been nearly as productive, scoring 1.64 points per game in the OHL during the 2023-24 season to date. This puts Goyette comfortably within the same category of comparable players described above. Like Firkus, the pathway to NHL games is there for Goyette, but the chance of a regular NHL future may be closer to one in four.

Carson Rehkopf | OHL | 18 years old | 1.79 points per game

Rehkopf has scored 29 goals and 21 assists in 28 games as an 18-year-old in the OHL this season, which is a pace of 1.79 points per game. Similar to my analysis of Firkus (see the “approach” section above), I defined Rehkopf’s peer group as OHL players from the 2017-18, 2018-19, and 2019-20 seasons in which the player scored at least 1.5 points per game and played at least one game as an 18-year-old.

Results

Across the three sample seasons, 12 OHL 18-year-old players have scored at a rate comparable to Rehkopf’s current season. 10 of 12 have played NHL games. Seven of 12 have played more than 100 NHL games already. And, remarkably, seven of 12 have scored at a rate greater than .4 points per game–equivalent to 33 points in a full 82-game NHL season and the proxy for a middle-six performer we used above.

Two players, Robert Thomas and Nick Suzuki, have emerged from this comparable group as true top-of-the-lineup contributors, with a few others, including Gabriel Vilardi and Philip Tomasino, threatening that status.

Based on this comparable group, an “average” projection for Rehkopf may be the career of Los Angeles Kings forward Arthur Kaliyev. Kaliyev’s “comparable” season for the Hamilton Bulldogs came in 2019-20. After that year, Kaliyev was eligible to play in the AHL. (Rehkopf will not be AHL eligible next year; he will miss the age cutoff by a week.) Kaliyev played the 2020-21 season for the Ontario Reign of the AHL. Since then, Kaliyev has entrenched himself in the Kings lineup, posting 14-goal and 13-goal seasons in his first two NHL seasons. This year Kaliyev is on pace for a 21-goal campaign.

If Rehkopf followed a similar trajectory, he would break into the NHL lineup during the 2025-26 season. If Rehkopf requires an AHL year, he would arrive in the NHL as a lineup regular in 2026-27.

Conclusions

Rehkopf’s production as an 18-year-old is highly indicative of not only an NHL career but a productive one. More than half of players “like him” emerge as middle- or top-of-the-lineup players. Boasting few holes in his offensive profile at this point, some scouts are anointing him as a “steal” of a second-round pick.

Jani Nyman | Liiga | 19 years old | .81 points per game

Nyman has scored 13 goals and 8 assists in 26 games as a 19-year-old in Liiga this season, which is a pace of .81 points per game. While this may not sound as impressive as Firkus or Rehkopf superficially, Liiga is Finland’s top professional league and a very difficult scoring environment. Liiga’s quality of play may be a step lower than the AHL, but it is almost as difficult for a player to score there due to the defensive emphasis of that league.

For Nyman, I identified his peer group as Liiga player seasons from 2017-18 through to 2021-22 where the player scored at least .7 points per game and played at least one game as a 19-year-old. (There were no such player seasons in 2022-23.)

Approach

This approach is similar to my approach with the CHL leagues described above, but I extended to consider more recent seasons primarily becasue the sample size of players scoring .7+ points per game as a 19-year-old in Liiga is much smaller than the sample of 1.5+-point CHL scorers. I wanted to capture as much data as I could without extending far into the past.

Results

Across the five sample seasons, only eight players met Nyman’s peer group criteria. This alone is impressive and underscores that Nyman’s scoring profile coming out of Finland is rare.

Of these players, seven of eight have played in NHL games. The only exception is Joni Ikonen, who was not drafted and never signed with an NHL team. Ikonen remains a top Liiga performer, second on his team in points and in the top 40 overall.

Three of eight comparable players have played 100 NHL games already. Four of eight comparables have produced at a rate greater than .4 points per NHL game played–equivalent to 33 points in a full 82-game NHL season and the stand-in for a middle-six performer we have been using. Two, Matias Maccelli and Anton Lundell, have performed more like top players.

An “average” comparable for Nyman is Juuso Parssinen. Parssinen’s comparable Liiga season was in 2020-21. Parssinen remained in Finland for one more season after that before coming to North America for the 2022-23 season. Parssinen split time between the NHL and AHL in 2022-23, scoring 25 points in 45 games while in the NHL. This year he has been in the NHL and has five points in 23 games.

If Nyman follows a similar trajectory, he will arrive at the NHL level to begin (or sometime during) the 2025-26 season. Nyman is currently expected to come to North America next year, which raises the possibility at least that he sees NHL time during the 2024-25 campaign. It is more likely, though, that Nyman takes at least a year to adapt to North American hockey with Coachella Valley and follows Parssinen’s timeline.

Conclusions

Nyman’s scoring profile is promising and puts him in a category closer to Rehkopf as a near certainty to play NHL games and a 50-50 proposition to emerge as a useful middle-six performer, if not better. I do have concerns about Nyman’s ability to translate his slower, less agile play style to the NHL level. A Kole Lind-type trajectory is not out of the question in my mind. But Nyman seems to be ascending his development curve still. And there is every reason to be optimistic based on his historical comparables.

Checking league context with NHL equivalencies

As an alternative to (or cross-check on) the comparable approach we used above, another tool in analyzing these players’ point production is an NHLe model.

What is NHLe? To oversimplify, it’s a projection of point production at the NHL level based on a conversion of the player’s output in another league. Hockey analysts such as Patrick Bacon and Thibaud Chatel have developed models by studying historical player performances as they cross the heterogeneous hockey landscape. From this data, analysts are able to control for other factors like age and approximate relative scoring rates in various leagues. For example, Chatel projects a scoring point in the OHL to be worth a little less than a quarter of a point in the NHL. A point in the AHL is little more than half of an NHL point. NHLe facilitates these crude cross-league comparisons.

An important limitation of NHLe is that it will not help you compare a 19-year-old scoring a point per game versus a 25-year-old doing so. It is strictly a tool for league comparison. That said, it can be useful in giving us a current snapshot.

I used Chatel’s model to calculate NHLe for Seattle’s 21-and-under players who have scored at least .5 points per game. Here is how they stack up, using data as of Sunday, December 3, 2023.

Shane Wright stands out with the strongest statistical season to date. The NHLe approach confirms that Nyman and Rehkopf’s scoring seasons put them in the next tier of Kraken prospects after Wright, together with undrafted free agent signee Logan Morrison–who does nothing but score when given the opportunity. NHLe also shows that Firkus’s strong season puts him in the next group of performers closely after those top four (where he is joined by Goyette).

Historically, the NHLe production of Firkus, Nyman, and Rehkopf has continued to trend up. As Hakstol noted, this upward trajectory is the most important thing. As long as these players continue to make progress, there is reason to be confident that an NHL future awaits each of them. The 2022-23 season has been an important step forward for each player.