“Down on the Farm” is your weekly update on all things Seattle Kraken prospects. This week we have an injury update on forward Julius Miettinen. Then we’ll analyze how Seattle’s pool of skater prospects measures up against “the field” by getting you a mid-season top-168 list of all NHL-affiliated players in our Data Score metric.
After that, we’ll check in on Ryan Winterton and Victor Ostman, get you scouting video on Justin Janicke, update you with data from the last week, and preview the week ahead. As always, if you have a prospect-related question you’d like to see featured in a future column, drop us a note below or on X or BlueSky @deepseahockey. Let’s dig in.
[Jan. 31, 2025, 3:30 p.m. PT edit: The AHL announced on Friday afternoon that Jani Nyman was named to the AHL All-Star Game as a replacement for Cale Fleury, who has been recalled to the NHL. The All-Star festivities are Sunday and Monday in Coachella Valley. More information on that below.]
Julius Miettinen injury update
Miettinen has not returned to the lineup for the Everett Silvertips since the World Junior Championship. Suspecting he may have suffered an injury, I watched back the gold-medal game between Finland and the United States before last week’s prospect update to see if I could identify anything. Nothing immediately stood out; to the contrary, he was taking shifts late in the third period and into overtime.
Yet, it seems Miettinen was toughing it out because, according to reporting from our WHL reporter Cameron Riggers, Miettinen did suffer a lower-body injury. Miettinen is in a boot currently, and, while it seems he will avoid surgery, the timeline for recovery is still a couple months out. Miettinen is targeting a return for the WHL playoffs.
It’s a tough development for an ascendant prospect (The Athletic/paywall). With luck, Everett will have a long playoff run that allows Miettinen to recoup some of that lost playing time. We’ll keep an eye out for his return to the lineup.
Stacking Seattle Kraken among NHL-affiliated prospects
I have been asked to put the performance of Seattle’s prospect pool in context a bit more, and also update my explanation of the “Data Score” metric I’ve been providing with these prospects each week. So, I thought I’d address both questions by taking a mid-season look at the scoring production of all NHL-affiliated skaters and stacking them by Data Score. This will give us an insight on how Seattle’s prospects are producing relative to their peers.
“Data Score” is a crude metric I developed to compare prospects across ages, leagues, and positions. It starts by applying an NHL equivalency (“NHLe”) to each player’s per-game scoring results. NHLe is a method to compare the scoring proficiency of players in the various professional and junior leagues across the globe. I used Thibaud Chatel’s model, which is the most up-to-date public research in the area. Check out Chatel’s Substack for an in-depth discussion of NHLe. For this project, I used Chatel’s newest model, which has been updated to account for 2023-24 season data.
For this list, I used data for all NHL-affiliated players who have played at least 10 games outside the NHL during the 2024-25 season. I eliminated players if they had played more than 30 games in the NHL this season, viewing those players as outside the scope of the “prospects” we’d benefit from analyzing.
After applying the NHLe multiplier to each player’s per-game scoring, I then made modest adjustments for height (shorter players penalized), age (older players penalized), and position (forwards penalized relative to defensemen). These factors relate to the likelihood of translating the production to the NHL. A 6-foot-2 defenseman producing .5 points per game in the AHL at 19 years old is more likely to translate to the NHL than a 5-foot-10 forward with the same production at 25 years old.
From looking at these numbers over the last couple years, I’ve generally found that I view a prospect as having a noteworthy season if they clear the 40-point threshold in Data Score. As of Thursday, Jan. 30, 2025, 168 NHL-affiliated prospects meeting our criteria had a Data Score of 40 or greater. Here is the list:
With 168 players listed, an “average” number of prospects per organization would be five. The Seattle Kraken are tied with the Calgary Flames for the most in the league with 11 players listed. The Flames have the slight edge in total value of the listed players as indicated by aggregate Data Score.
Oscar Fisker Mølgaard (SHL/HV71) continues to pace the Kraken in Data Score. It is clear this method prefers the relative certainty associated with players playing in professional leagues like the AHL, KHL, or SHL. This pushes some notable junior prospects farther down the list than one might expect. But I’m not sure Data Score is “wrong” in doing that if the goal is to project who is likely to play NHL games.
Finally, a word of caution. While it is fair to be encouraged by Seattle’s standing, I’d be remiss if I didn’t note the potential for confirmation bias in a scoring-data oriented study like this one. It is well-documented that the Kraken emphasize scoring data in the pre-draft process. It is unsurprising, then, that high-scoring junior players drafted by Seattle would continue to score in the junior ranks after they are drafted. Yet, some of these players “fall” in the draft relative to their scoring production for scouting reasons that led other teams to believe that scoring won’t translate at higher levels.
Consider the case of Clarke Caswell, for example. He fell to the fifth round last year despite posting more than a point per game in the WHL. This season Caswell has improved his scoring production even further, earning him a spot on the 168-prospect watchlist above. Will his scoring ultimately translate to the NHL? I tend to favor the view that scoring is the most reliable indicator we have, but that’s only relative to the alternative tools available; it’s far from infallible. Only time will tell.
Notes on three Kraken prospects
Justin Janicke | F | Univ. of Notre Dame Fighting Irish (NCAA)
The Kraken face a deadline of Aug. 15, 2025, to sign 2021 seventh-round pick Justin Janicke before losing his exclusive rights. The 6-foot forward has worked his way up the depth chart during four years at the University of Notre Dame, reaching the top line in this his senior season. His 24 points in 26 games rank second on the team. Check out his shifts from Notre Dame’s Jan. 10, 2025, game against the University of Michigan below.
Victor Östman | G | Coachella Valley Firebirds (AHL)
As part of the roster shuffling associated with Philipp Grubauer’s waiver, Seattle reassigned goalie Victor Östman from the ECHL to the AHL. With Grubauer and Nikke Kokko also in Coachella Valley it’s not yet clear that Östman will get time in net for the Firebirds. He may be insurance in the short run to allow Grubauer time to get his feet under him and acclimate. Still, it’s an “earned” promotion for Östman who posted two wins and a .958 save percentage this past week for the Mavericks and has been solid overall.
Ryan Winterton | F | Coachella Valley Firebirds (AHL)
Ryan Winterton is your Sound Of Hockey Prospect of the Week, with one goal and three assists across three games for Coachella Valley.
For a player so close to an NHL role, Winterton feels underestimated. At 6-foot-2 with strong skating skills and excellent athleticism, the physical tools are there. What’s more, his commitment to forechecking and backchecking will earn him the trust of any coaching staff, as will his ability to kill penalties and seize open ice in transition for counterattack goals.
Yet, there are two reasons Winterton isn’t discussed among a higher tier of prospects. The first is his injury history. He missed significant time during his junior career to injury (not to mention the COVID-related suspension of play). This delayed his development and likely raised some red flags for scouts. Yet, he has avoided injury setbacks since turning pro, racking up 85 total games between the NHL and AHL last season and 42 so far this year.
The second factor that has held him back is the perception that Winterton has limited upside, particularly offensively. He certainly doesn’t have the offensive ceiling of players like Shane Wright or Berkly Catton or even teammates Jani Nyman and Jagger Firkus; but, to my eyes, Winterton has proven adept at scoring off the rush and providing a support role in-zone that should drive results.
This is starting to show in the numbers. Winterton’s .765 point-per-game pace is only slightly behind Shane Wright’s .797 pace in the AHL last season. Of course, Winterton is older; he’s about 16 months older than Wright, to be exact. But when you account for the development time Winterton lost at the junior level, it’s not surprising he needed longer to get there offensively. I don’t envision Winterton as a stand-out offensive piece like Wright, but I do think we’re seeing a balanced, auxiliary-type player package with enough offense that should fit up and down an NHL lineup. That’s a very good prospect.
Kraken prospects data update
If Zeb Forsfjäll was dealing with an injury after the World Juniors, it appears it was not quite as severe as Miettinen’s injury. Forsfjäll returned to the lineup for his SHL club team Skellefteå on Thursday, playing 11 minutes.
“The show” goes on for Tyson Jugnauth, who had four points in two games last week. In contrast, Caden Price continues to struggle to find his offensive game since moving to Lethbridge in a trade. After scoring 1.2 points per game for the Kelowna Rockets, Price has only two assists in nine games so far with the Hurricanes.
Kim Saarinen continues to perform at the highest level of professional hockey in Finland. He posted a .938 save percentage in two starts this week. Saarinen is now tied for first in save percentage (.915) among all Liiga goaltenders. He’s 18 years old.
With Ales Stezka up in the NHL in the near term, I’m curious to see how the Firebirds split up time in goal given the many different agendas in play there.
2024-25 Sound Of Hockey Prospect of the Week tracker
Clarke Caswell: 2
Berkly Catton: 2
Tyson Jugnauth: 2
Alexis Bernier: 1
Andrei Loshko: 1
Oscar Fisker Mølgaard: 1
Victor Östman: 1
Caden Price: 1
Kim Saarinen: 1
Nathan Villeneuve: 1
Ryan Winterton: 1
Semyon Vyazovoy: 1
Previewing the week ahead
If you have a FloHockey subscription to watch the Firebirds, you’ll also be able to watch Mølgaard this weekend, when his SHL team HV71 takes on Leksands IF at 9:00 a.m. PST on Saturday. Elsewhere, the Everett Silvertips and Kaden Hammell host the Spokane Chiefs and Berkly Catton on Saturday night. The Beanpot, an annual college hockey tournament among Boston College, Boston University, Harvard University, and Northeastern University, kicks off on Monday. Harvard forward and Kraken prospect Ben MacDonald will take on Boston University that day.
The Coachella Valley Firebirds and Accrisure Arena will host the AHL All-Star Classic this weekend. The Skills Competition is Sunday, beginning at 6:00 pm PST. The All-Star Challenge (a four-team, 3-on-3, round-robin tournament) is Monday, beginning at 6:00 pm PST. Those events will be on FloHockey as well.
Recent prospect updates
January 24, 2025: Tyson Jugnauth is putting on a show in Portland
January 17, 2025: Jani Nyman’s scoring, 2025 NHL Draft coverage
January 10, 2025: Interview with Kraken director of player development Jeff Tambellini
January 3, 2025: Stock Up, Stock Down for Kraken prospects at the World Junior Championship
December 20, 2024: Kraken system after the Kaapo Kakko trade, David Goyette’s progress, and World Juniors
December 13, 2024: Three Kraken prospects make Team Canada WJC roster
December 6, 2024: Seattle Kraken goalie prospects progressing in the professional ranks
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.
Curtis, lots of info here. If I had to summarize, you are saying that scoring is the best indicator of NHL production and your data score is the best indicator of relative scoring and those who have a data score above 40 are doing well. I know this is all crude metrics but is it too much of a leap to then say that those 11 prospects the Kraken have above 40 may be future NHL regulars?
And interested on what is going on with Sale. Because it is no longer an international tournament, has he checked out mentally again with CV? I know he is younger but Firkus, Nyman, and Roed are also rookies and have moved well ahead of him in point production. Any insights?
One other thing. Nyman is 51 and Kirkus in 137 on your data score list, despite their PPG been similar enough. Is this entirely down to their size difference?
Firkus
Yes, the margin gets pretty thin one you get down to that part of the list. Effectively 3 scoring points (Nyman has more), 3 months of age (Nyman is younger), and 6 inches of height (Nyman is taller) are the difference between Nyman and Firkus in the ranking. Are those factors really a reason to prefer one prospect over another? I don’t know. I think it’s fair to be cautious and just say they’re in a similar range. But that’s the reason for the difference. Just a crude/ballpark measure.
Particularly since this is only looking at one half of one season of scoring data, I wouldn’t really want to put too much weight on saying X number of players project as NHL regulars. It’s more just to compare how seasons are going relative to peers. I think, big picture, the goal of work like this is to help figure out who projects to an NHL career, but you’d want to get much more sophisticated in your modeling and your inputs (multiple years of scoring data).
I need to spend another game watching Sale closely. I’ll put it on the list.
On Sale, Wednesday CV wins 5-2 and Sale is a -2. Friday they win 2-1 and he is apparently scratched. I hope you can find a game to watch with him playing.
Curtis – thanks again for your excellent content. A fewandom thoughts:
The unanswerable question(s) of course are – do NHLe scores correlate to higher NHL player performance and thus actual player rankings, or do NHLe simple predict the probability of a player having an NHL career at all? (e.g. using a metric like 100 games played as a benchmark for “success”).
At first blush, Kraken prospects aggregate data score looks impressive (2nd overall per above). But this is purely a function of having 11 players above the 40-point threshold as their AVERAGE NHLe player score is only 49.91 – placing them 23rd overall. Which is kind of a bummer. The second unanswerable question would be how much of a relative difference between two teams’ average NHLe scores is significant? For example, the difference between Nashville and Seattle’s average NHLe score is ~ 2.4 (52.3 – 49.9) probably doesn’t mean much. But would you rather have Seattle’s 11 prospects with an average score of 49.9, or Detroit’s 7 prospects with an average score of 63.0 (13 points higher than Seattle). If individual players NHLe scores are good predictors of success (actual NHL player rankings) then I’d much rather have Detroit’s smaller prospect pool. On a related subject the Athletic did their updated NHL farm systems and ranks Seattle at 10th overall, with the narrative that the Kraken have a high number of players characterized as just better-than-average prospects.
Regarding the Kraken’s scouting – the fact that they emphasize scoring data in prospect evaluations makes me very nervous, and it infers (I may be wrong) that they’re placing too much emphasis on quantitative analysis relative to actual scouting. Which is maybe why we drafted players like Firkus and Sale with questionable NHL futures. Although I don’t (yet) think that GMRF needs to go, he does need another “hockey person” to assist with scouting and “real” player analytics – someone higher in the organization than assistant GM.