Welcome to “Down on the Farm,” your weekly Seattle Kraken prospects update. We are at the finish line, folks. No drafted or signed Kraken player remains active in this 2025-26 hockey season. That means it’s almost time for the “Down on the Farm” offseason hiatus.
I say “almost” because I’d like to return with one last column, a capstone mailbag, in the next week or two. If you’d like to see that happen and get a prospect question answered, let us know in the comments here or reach out to us on social media platforms or the Sound Of Hockey Discord.
I hope we’ll be back at this again next year. For now, though, I just want to say thank you to everyone who regularly read these columns and took this journey along with me. As you all know, it can feel a bit more like work than fun to keep up with the happenings of Kraken prospects across the globe. Your support, encouragement, and camaraderie in this foolhardy endeavor make it all worth it.
OK, one final time, let’s get to the agenda. We’ll recap the end of a stellar season for Julius Miettinen and the Everett Silvertips, get you a full data snapshot of the Kraken prospect pool, update you on where we stand in the draft season calendar, and crown our Sound Of Hockey Prospect of the Week… of the Year. (Or something like that.)
Miettinen and the Everett Silvertips fall in the Memorial Cup Final
Julius Miettinen played in the last CHL game of the 2025-26 season, the Memorial Cup Final, but unfortunately, he and his teammates came up just short against a surgical Kitchener squad.
The Silvertips outshot the Rangers through two periods and controlled extended stretches of even-strength play, but a couple of undisciplined moments led to a protracted 5-on-3 Kitchener power play to begin the third period. Kitchener converted twice on that opportunity, putting the Rangers up 5–1. The OHL champions would not relinquish that substantial lead, despite one quick response goal off a sweet cross-seam setup from Miettinen.
CB is dialed 🙌🏻 pic.twitter.com/BpqXFcZSpR
— xyz – Everett Silvertips (@WHLsilvertips) June 1, 2026
It is a bittersweet end to an outstanding season overall. The Silvertips won 57 regular-season games (nearly missing the all-time WHL wins record) and tied the record for fewest playoff losses (two) en route to a WHL Championship. For his part, Miettinen was awarded WHL Playoffs MVP and now holds the record for most WHL playoff goals by a Finnish-born player.
“It was an awesome year,” Miettinen said, before reminiscing that winning the WHL Championship was “a moment I’ll never forget.” That is, aside from the first few minutes after the final horn, which he admitted with a laugh are a bit of a “blackout” in his memory.
On his WHL Playoffs MVP award, Miettinen was gracious in recognizing the honor but preferred to keep the focus on what his team accomplished. “It means a lot to get that. I’m really proud of myself, but I wouldn’t have gotten that [award] without the guys. That was for us, not for me.”
🔊 "I hope that I can inspire Finnish guys to come here and play North American hockey."
— xyz – Everett Silvertips (@WHLsilvertips) June 2, 2026
Exit Interview: @SeattleKraken F Julius Miettinen ('06) pic.twitter.com/ObOZBzSwai
Next up for Miettinen is a big role on the 2026-27 Coachella Valley Firebirds.
The NHL Combine is underway
The NHL Scouting Combine is currently taking place in Buffalo, New York. Running from June 1 to 6, the Combine hosts 90 top draft prospects and all 32 NHL teams for official prospect measurements, fitness testing, medical evaluations, and interviews. It’s the last major milestone before the NHL Draft in late June. And with the draft recently “decentralized,” it’s the last time before picks are made that most of the NHL’s decision-makers are gathered together.
took a trip down memory lane in honor of combine week 🏋️♂️ pic.twitter.com/bRdT2VIIAJ
— Seattle Kraken (@SeattleKraken) June 4, 2026
In the abstract, I am tempted to downplay the significance of Combine testing. But Kraken GM Jason Botterill told Sound Of Hockey last summer that he sees value in these measures. So we should keep an eye out for the standout performers.
The Kraken are also taking advantage of this time to interview prospects, including in extended formats. For example, Scott Wheeler of The Athletic reported that the Kraken took WHL defenseman Carson Carels out for dinner this week in Buffalo.
Carson Carels had dinners with the Kraken and Sharks this week in Buffalo.
— Scott Wheeler (@scottcwheeler) June 4, 2026
Carels projects to go near the top of the first round at the end of this month. He is the No. 4 overall prospect in the draft according to Elite Prospects and was ranked the No. 3 North American skater by NHL Central Scouting.
Similarly, Cam Robinson of Elite Prospects reports that the Kraken also had a dinner with Keaton Verhoeff. Verhoeff is No. 12 overall according to Elite Prospects and was ranked the No. 4 North American skater by NHL Central Scouting.
Kraken prospects data update
For one final time during this 2025-26 hockey season, here are your Kraken skater prospect statistics:
Last but not least, we also have your year-end goalie statistics:
Video from the vault
It is our plan to have semi-regular “Friday Film Room” columns this summer in which we focus in on a few prospects, analyzing aspects of their game and development. Almost always this will include new or previously unreleased game videos for us to dissect together. For now, though, let’s go deep into the vault and get you a special prospect video. Matty Beniers’ shifts from the United States’ 2021 World Junior Championship Gold Medal win over Canada “Red, White, Blue, and Gold,” indeed.
Sound Of Hockey Prospect of the Week… of the Year
With the 2025-26 season at a close, we have co-champions. Julius Miettinen and Jake O’Brien each earned four “Prospect of the Week” honors, which, according to our arithmetic, gives them a share of the season-long title. This really ruined our trophy budget. Not sure what we’re going to do. Congratulations to them, regardless.
The other Kraken players who received Prospect of the Week superlatives are as follows:
3 wins: Jagger Firkus, Kim Saarinen, Oscar Fisker Mølgaard
2 wins: Clarke Caswell, Nikke Kokko, Logan Morrison, Nathan Villeneuve, Semyon Vyazovoi
1 win: J.R. Avon, Alexis Bernier, Barrett Hall, Ollie Josephson, Tyson Jugnauth, Victor Ostman, Zaccharya Wisdom
Tracking 2026 NHL Draft prospects: Casey Mutryn
Wyatt Cullen appears poised to be the first player drafted from the U.S. National Team Development Program, but Casey Mutryn has the potential to be a second first-round pick from the program. Mutryn is 6-foot-3 and a strong athlete who can really skate. This raises the floor of his profile. Add in the fact that he is young for the class and already plays a strong two-way game, and you have a player who brings an appealing package on draft day. I’ve liked what I’ve seen from him a good deal. The question he’ll face is whether there is enough playmaking in his game to drive offense at the higher levels professionally.
Mutryn was ranked No. 24 among North American skaters in the final NHL Central Scouting rankings. He was No. 41 on our mid-season Big Board.
Recent prospect updates
May 23, 2026: Firebirds season ends, most valuable Miettinen
May 15, 2026: Julius Miettinen dominates WHL playoffs, Jake O’Brien makes his pro debut
May 8, 2026: Firebirds one game from Pacific Division Finals, Forsfjäll wins a championship
May 1, 2026: Firebirds advance in AHL playoffs, Kraken have sixth-best lottery odds on May 5
Apr. 11, 2026: Caswell to National Championship game, Saarinen to Coachella Valley
April 4, 2026: Kraken prospects to the Frozen Four, Firebirds face a rash of injuries
March 28, 2026: Kraken prospect playoff preview
March 21, 2026: Saarinen’s Liiga dominance, and the Kraken development track record
March 13, 2026: Kraken prospects mailbag – part 2
March 7, 2026: Seattle Kraken sign Ryden Evers, trade from draft asset depth
Header photo of Julius Miettinen taken by Evan Morud, courtesy of the Everett Silvertips.
Curtis Isacke
Curtis is a Sound Of Hockey contributor and member of the Kraken press corps. Curtis is an attorney by day, and he has read the NHL collective bargaining agreement and bylaws so you don’t have to. He can be found analyzing the Kraken, NHL Draft, and other hockey topics on Twitter and Bluesky @deepseahockey.
It wasn’t dinner, but Drance reported today the Kraken met with Viggo Björk. Could the Kraken possibly add another highly skilled undersized center at No.7?
Thanks again Curtis.
Go Kraken!!!
Where is a wall to beat my head against
Great update, as usual! Apparently none of this matters because Seattle loves to deliberately destroy the careers of young players. It’s why we got the franchise. And it’s all Ron Francis’ (and now JB’s) fault! It’s still fun to talk about! 😄
PS – Brett Howden is officially the best player in the NHL. Some of the experts should analyze that.
with Jake o’brian making good strives i wonder whats going to happen in the coming months. i assume he’ll play in coachella but if he makes the roster next year i wonder who will take C2 and C3.
Jake played in some Coachella games in the playoffs recently. Frankly, he looked like an 18 year old playing against men. That said, he adjusted quickly and had some flashes of brilliance as we’d expect being drafted 8th overall. He is 6’2 and incredibly skilled, but realistically we are looking at 2-3 years before this kid can earn a spot on an NHL roster. That said, the potential upside is unreal. 27 year old Jake O’Brien is a potential game changer.
That said…
JOB was knocked around like an empty water bottle most of the time in the AHL playoffs, but he didn’t back down from the physicality. Hopefully he can add that extra strength along with the explosiveness to his stride that he needs to become a difference maker at the NHL level. He is also very young still, he’ll turn 19 in mid-June, he’ll be 21 when the 28/29 season starts. By then the Kraken should know if he has been able to add that strength.
28/29 or even 29/30 is the time frame for when players like O’Brien, Catton, Miettinen, OFM, Nyman, etc (and potentially the more mature prospects drafted this summer) should be fully established at the NHL level. It’s a good pool of talent, but it is not brilliant in comparison with the top competition. As Curtis said in his previous post about the Kraken’s strategy, that’s a natural point in time for the org to aim at when building the team.
It follows that the Kraken should use the 26 and 27 drafts to build on that pool with top talent. Accept that you are not going to be meaningfully competitive for two or three more years and use those seasons to lay a real foundation. Stop this Franken-build approach they’ve taken so far in desperation for the playoffs, it’s counterproductive. Trade the vets with value that don’t fit the timeline well (e.g. Dunn, McCann). By that time (28/29 or later) players like Beniers and Kakko will be vets in their own right, so they fit the timeline better.
I’ve read multiple places Šmits is the most NHL ready defenseman in the draft and could be in the league next season. I’ve also seen him mocked to Seattle quite a bit. If they were to take him, does that affect the thinking on Dunn or Evans?
Probably? Dunn and Evans both need new contracts in a year or two. I think both are likely to move on at some point. I like the current RD situation better than the LD, but Monty and Larsson are already well into their thirties (32 and 33).
I read that the Kraken have taken Carels (LD), Verhoeff (RD) and Björck (C) out for dinner. Smits looks promising indeed and like he’ll be ready sooner than most from this draft. Malte Gustafsson is also a huge kid at LD ranked around the 10th pick, so he’d be no reach. Carels, Smits, Verhoeff, Gustafsson are all big, strong kids.
The two names I hear most at No.8 are Šmits and Rudolph, but I also think this draft could be a lot like 2024 and the picks could be all over the place. If they were to draft Šmits, I could see that making Evans available for a trade package or even Dunn… but I think hanging onto Dunn until the trade deadline would be the “smart” move.
Yes with the contract Monty has I can see the team moving on from Dunn. Unless there is a team that really wants him in the offseason and are willing to pay for it the deadline makes a lot more sense. But do they play the deadline like they did this season if they are close to a playoff spot…Hope not it’s time they focus on building a roster that we can be a force with and not focus on short term gains.
The offseason moves they make this year will tell a lot about how realistic they are. I still feel they will just try to grasp straws, hope I’m wrong.
I’ve heard talk about “what they should be doing” but I’m curious exactly what that looks like. Curtis was pretty clear he didn’t think “tanking” was the right idea and he said exactly why:
“Once an organization grows comfortable with losing, that mindset can be hard to shake. It is also important to the development of the young players.”
So is “what they should be doing “tanking” or is it just that everything they do is wrong? When you say “build the pool with top talent” are you talking about committing to being one of the absolute worst team in the league, or just picking top ten? They’re on their fifth top ten in six drafts so I assume you’re saying they need to absolutely suck. I don’t think just moving a few old guys gets this team to the absolute bottom… so just exactly what does “what they should be doing” look like? I’m curious what the folks on this thread think the offseason should actually and specifically look like. Something beyond “doing it the right way”.
I think that’s a cliché. Teams that “grow comfortable with losing” are teams that are, for whatever reasons, fine with selling bad teams as “playoff hopefuls” (hi SEATTLE KRAKEN) instead of taking the time and effort to actually build a real team.
1. Add at least two 1st round prospects in the draft (maybe a F and a D).
2. Engineer a McCann trade for a younger, more timeline friendly player. My personal favorite is McCann to NJ for Nemec and NJ’s 12th. Maybe we are throwing in a 2nd round pick. Then we have a 7th, 12th, 25th and Simon Nemec. You could package 12th + 25th to move up to 8th, maybe.
Move on from Oleksiak, Schwartz and Tolvanen.
If possible, sign McMann to a reasonable deal (3-4 yrs @ 5.5m or less?) or let him go and sign 1-2 other “decent, fun to watch” UFA’s (Roslovic? Dickinson?)
2027, maximize ice time for Matty, Shane, Berkly and the young player we get for McCann. IE, Nemec replaces Larsson in the depth chart.
Agreed Seattle G… for the most part. The key is putting (making our coach) our best young players on top lines getting ice time, regardless if we win or lose.
Stop signing place holders ASAP. Every kraken offseason has resolved around finding stop gap place holders to make us slightly more competitive, time to end that. I believe our window for a full on tank isn’t there but it’s time to move to the youth we have. I don’t know if this answers your question Daryl in your mind but I feel there are many different options available that would focus on the future if we just stopped signing placeholders.
Signing “place holders” is a weird way to describe bringing in some decent “support” to fill out your roster. I think a lot of people don’t understand that many young players are not worthy of playing in the NHL just because they were drafted. You aren’t going to have a team entirely comprised of 20-22 year old average prospects. You may have as many as 3-4 young players, but they better be your blue chip guys. The rest of the team has to be experienced, serviceable NHL players to HELP those 3-4 young guys. Then maybe there are 1-2 guys who come in the lineup who are 24-26 who have been dominating at a lower level and couldn’t break a roster on another team.
People love all the young talent on SJ and Anaheim, but all those kids are legit blue chip, drafted in the 1st round players because those teams suffered for years.
I like doing a little roster anatomy analysis around the Stanley Cup. I’m surprised more pods and media don’t do it with all the concurrent draft speculation. Summary of findings for Carolina and Vegas:
Out of 36 most active skaters from both teams…
6 were drafted in the top 7.
12 in the 1st round
8 in the 2nd round
14 3rd-7th and undrafted (5 in the 3rd round, 4 in the 4th-7th rounds, 5 were undrafted).
20 are 30+
8 are 33+
12 are 30-32
12 are 25-29
3 are 24 or under
Youngest player
Stankoven – 23, 47th pick
A young team isn’t going to win the Stanley cup until they mature, you can’t be that team without being a very crafty GM (LV) or developing your young players. These teams with 24 year olds getting chemistry and looking like they might be the next chapter are likely the teams winning cups in 4/5 years…. When their players have matured. Cycling through these vets like me the kraken have been doing isn’t going to win you a cup today or tomorrow.
Time will tell. Historically, teams that win The Cup have 4-6 guys on the roster they actually drafted. Everyone else is a “place holder.”
And once we’ve built a team that can compete for a cup you don’t call them place holders anymore….. you call them depth. The last thing the kraken need right now is excessive depth.
Actually, the last thing the Kraken need is moving up some average prospect who probably has no business playing in the NHL, just because they are young. It would be better to go get a young player from someone else who is actually a good player, like a Nemec or maybe even a MacTavish, who can’t find roster spots on the teams that drafted them.
The last thing the kraken need is playing the crap out of some middling over the hill player and having a guy like Wright warming the bench…. Sounds familiar doesn’t it.
I don’t recall ever saying we should bring in players that have no business playing in the nhl but think about this… we seem to have no problem playing players on the first and second line who have no business being there.
This year’s Vegas has a grand total of two on their roster. Dorofeyev, picked at 79th, and some kid named Kaeden Korczak picked at 41, who I don’t think I have seen play yet. Granted, they are the other end of the extreme.
There are plenty of fine leagues out there for people who like watching young, semi-average (maybe even good, but we don’t know yet) players trying to figure their game out.
Came here late and it’s sad to see all the toxicity on a very benign article. Great work as always Curtis.
Don’t be late next time.
This might be the only toxic post 😂
Batting 100, well done.
Yes your comment is indeed toxic and you are batting 100.
Good to see I still live rent free in you head after an extended absence