Welcome to “Down on the Farm,” your weekly one-stop for all things Seattle Kraken prospects. This week we’re going to focus on a question about Seattle’s depth at the right defense position, before passing along notes on three Kraken prospects, getting you data on the rest, and previewing the week ahead. Let’s get to it.
Kraken prospect question of the week
Q: Who do you think is the team’s longer-term answer(s) at the right defense position? – Chuck H
A: The long-term health of the Kraken blue line was front of mind for me going into the 2024 NHL Draft. The team had invested heavily at the forward position, but the defense corps was a bit light in comparison. Seattle had a handful of interesting defensive names, but each carried his own question marks or upside limitations that made me skeptical the team had any real long-term answers in the system.
Ultimately, Seattle bypassed three fairly unique blue line prospects with its No. 8 overall pick (Zeev Buium, Zayne Parekh, and Sam Dickinson), instead opting to invest in offensive powder keg Berkly Catton. Having now seen Catton’s skills up close during development and rookie camps, it is hard to criticize the selection, but the absence of any projected difference makers on the back end still concerned me.
Some answers at right defense came during NHL free agency later in the summer. First, the Kraken made a splash addition, signing 30-year-old right defenseman Brandon Montour to a seven-year agreement. The team followed that move later in the summer with a four-year contract extension for 31-year-old righty blueliner Adam Larsson. Just like that, two-thirds of the team’s NHL right defense depth chart was set for at least five seasons.
Assuming health, Montour and Larsson are fully capable of providing top-four caliber play for the next two years. This makes the short-term need one of depth. The organization has four more right defensemen playing high-level professional hockey: Will Borgen and Coachella Valley blueliners Cale Fleury, Ville Ottavainen, and Ty Nelson.
Borgen, 27, has been very solid in a third-pair role, leveraging plus athleticism and aggression. That said, he’s due to be an unrestricted free agent this summer and looked for full value during his previous contract negotiations with the Kraken. I suspect there will be at least one team out there that thinks Borgen can handle a second-pair role and will offer him a commensurate raise on his current $2.7 million AAV contract. With four hefty deals already on Seattle’s blue line, I’m uncertain the Kraken would be able to match such an offer.
Fleury has performed well as a first-pair defender in the AHL this year and has looked like a capable NHL fill-in when called upon, deploying an all-around skillset that doesn’t have glaring weaknesses. He is very likely to be “Group-Six” unrestricted free agent at season’s end, though, which puts his future up in the air, just like Borgen’s.
For his part, Nelson is still working to adapt his skillset to the professional game, and, at this point, I don’t view him as a probable NHL option to begin the 2025-26 season.
That brings us to the most intriguing name on the list: Ottavainen. The 22-year-old, 6-foot-5 Finnish blueliner was Seattle’s fourth-round pick in the 2021 draft. Since coming over to North America last season, he has shown off very good athleticism, game speed, and skating fluidity to match a physical defensive presence. What sets him apart is his willingness to jump into the rush for Coachella Valley with a style akin to Jamie Oleksiak. He needs to clean up the puck errors and mistaken coverages that can hold him back, but I view him as the most likely candidate to earn third-pair playing time next season for Seattle. Particularly if he can be paired with a capable veteran presence (perhaps Fleury), this is an adequate plan.
Over the medium-to-long term, Montour and Larsson’s contracts mean they are likely to remain on the team well into their decline phases when you’d rather have a young player step up to take a top role. At this point I’m unsure Ottavainen has the upside to climb into that role. This shifts our attention back to Nelson, as well as junior defensemen Lukas Dragicevic and Alexis Bernier. Of these players, Dragicevic is the only prospect that presents with the potential to reach a top-four role this team will need. Dragicevic’s transition and offensive-zone skating and distribution skills make him an asset to any offense. The question is whether he can get his defense to an adequate place. Right now, he has a long way to go to reach that place.
For me, this means there is still a focus on the position at the 2025 NHL Draft. It’s possible the team’s next impact right-shot defenseman isn’t even in the organization yet.
Notes on three Kraken prospects
Oscar Fisker Mølgaard
HV71 (SHL) | C | 19 years old | 5 games played | 1 goal | 3 assists | 0.8 PPG
Last week, we noted we were relieved and content just to see Mølgaard back on the ice after an early season lower-body injury kept him out of the lineup for almost two months. This week, Mølgaard demands recognition for his production. Mølgaard recorded four points, including his first goal of the season, in three games this week. This qualifies as a scoring binge in the SHL where only five players are currently averaging more than a point per game. Though Mølgaard’s SHL team HV71 continues to struggle, the young Dane is doing his part. He is the Sound Of Hockey Prospect of the Week.
Niklas Kokko
Coachella Valley Firebirds (AHL) | G | 5 games played | 2.61 GAA | 0.893 save percentage
I strongly considered Niklas “Nikke” Kokko for prospect of the week. He drew only one start in the last seven days, and the numbers don’t exactly jump off the page: 20 saves on 21 shots on goal during a 4-1 win over Abbotsford. Watching the game, though, at least a half dozen of the saves were stellar, denying high-danger looks. The Canucks certainly “deserved” a better fate in the game based on the shot quality they were generating, but Kokko was the difference. Overall, Kokko has been quite good. His stat line is deflated by a few clunker goals on what I’d characterize as medium-to-low-danger opportunities. If he can clean those up, his stat line should continue to trend upwards.
Berkly Catton
Spokane Chiefs (WHL) | F | 18 years old | 20 games played | 9 goals | 23 assists | 1.6 PPG
Catton continues to play at a high level in the WHL—a league he is simply too good for. His speed, shot, and creativity are too much for most of his junior peers to handle (including Kraken defenseman Caden Price in the video above). That said, in the two viewings I’ve had of him this season, I get the sense he is working on areas of his game that could help deliver him to the NHL sooner rather later, including decisiveness in his breaks and commitment in front of the net on both ends. I’m looking forward to seeing him in the World Juniors, a pressure-packed stage where the competition level should ratchet up. The Athletic recently projected him as Team Canada’s No. 1 center in that holiday-season U20 tournament.
Kraken prospect data update
The Firebirds are riding a six-game point streak, including a 2-0-1 record over the last seven days. Firebirds forward Ryan Winterton had a goal and two assists over those three games. After a slow start, Coachella Valley is now third in the AHL’s Pacific Division.
Coming off another solid week, Carson Rehkopf continues to pace the system in points. Andrei Loshko found the back of the net four times in three OHL games since our last update and continues to lead the system in goals with 13.
As for the goalies, it seems Semyon Vyazovoy may have slipped from tandem status into more of a true backup role for his KHL team Salavat Yulaev Ufa. He has only one start in eight November games.
Kokko remains undefeated in North American professional hockey. With partner Ales Stezka’s play trending up as of late too, the Firebirds have a strong foundation in goal to compete for a playoff spot.
2024-25 Sound Of Hockey Prospect of the Week tracker
Clarke Caswell: 2
Alexis Bernier: 1
Berkly Catton: 1
Caden Price: 1
Oscar Fisker Mølgaard: 1
Previewing the week ahead
Barrett Hall and St. Cloud State take on Zaccharya Wisdom and Colorado College in a two-game set this weekend. Andrei Loshko and Nathan Villeneuve will likely find themselves squaring off over the face-off dot on Saturday night when Sudbury visits Niagara in an OHL matchup. Julius Miettinen, Kaden Hammell, and the Everett Silvertips have four games on tap, including a contest against Catton’s Spokane Chiefs Friday and one against Caden Price and the Kelowna Rockets on Sunday. The Rockets will also play the Portland Winterhawks and Tyson Jugnauth next Wednesday. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!
Previous prospect updates
November 15, 2024: Will an NCAA ruling change the landscape for Seattle Kraken prospects?
November 8, 2024: Kraken prospect Jagger Firkus is doing the little things necessary to succeed
November 1, 2024: ‘No days off’ approach for Kraken prospect Clarke Caswell
October 25, 2024: Kraken prospect Eduard Sale’s “tryout” in Coachella Valley is going well
October 18, 2024: Kraken prospect Andrei Loshko filling the stat sheet in the OHL
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.
With 5 RD picks across 4 drafts, Francis has quietly been stocking up on a position that most teams are short of. At the same time, he has been doing less with LD. With Evans graduate, there really is only Price among higher picks in the organization. So perhaps in the upcoming draft they do go for another LD, as the path after Oleksiak slows down is not clear beyond Dunn and Evans.
Maybe you can look at the F prospects at CV in a future article, as Nyman, Morrison, Goyette, and Robertson seemed to have all started rather quietly.
It is also worth remember that the Kraken passed 5 times on drafting Lane Hutson, one of this year’s leading Calder candidates. I wonder if that was the right move in retrospect?
I imagine that is because Dunn is still in the early-middle of his prime, and Garth hasn’t even entered his yet. The Kraken can expect some long years of solid defensive play on the left side. Even when age begins to slow Oleksiak, he will just give minutes to Evans as he comes into his own–a splendid situation for both players. All a young LD can reasonably expect to do here in the near future is be trade bait.
The right side, though, is in a dangerous situation. Larsson can’t be the kind of minutes-munching, top-pairing, shut-down-Jack-Eichel guy that he has been for too many more years, and Borgen is about to leave for a huge paycheck, justifiably so. Montour is great now, but like Oleksiak, he is on the wrong side of thirty. Getting some young right-handed defensemen should be the burning passion of Ron Francis and his staff. It will be a godsend if Ottavainan is able to make the jump to the big league next year.
I haven’t seen Dragicevic play yet. Is his defense really that much of a liability? Let’s see, he has 22 assists in 17 games… okay, that’s impressive. And yet he is somehow a -12! How is it even possible to rack up that many points and be that far in the negatives? Coach Bickel, you have your work cut out for you.
Just saw David Jiricek on the Athletic’s trade board. Is that a player the Kraken should pursue, as his time in Columbus may be ending?
Does the article discuss how current NHL players on Seattle’s roster might impact the prospects’ chances of earning a spot? Greeting : Magister Manajemen