Despite falling behind twice in the third period on Friday in Spokane, the Portland Winterhawks found the answers they needed to force overtime, where they would eventually prevail over the Chiefs thanks to James Stefan etching the overtime winner.
Following the game, I caught up with the newest member of the Portland Winterhawks and Seattle Kraken prospect, Tyson Jugnauth, after he assisted on both the game-tying and game-winning goals.
He walked through his play to find Stefan open for the game-winner. “I had a good stick on the puck,” Jugnauth said. “I saw Stefan open in the high slot, so I tried to get it to him as quick I could, and he made a great play.”
The sequence was an example of Jugnauth’s offensive ability, which didn’t get displayed at the University of Wisconsin as frequently as he wanted. That’s part of the reason he recently changed courses and joined the Portland Winterhawks.
Acquiring his CHL rights just last week from the Kamloops Blazers, the price to get Jugnauth was not cheap for the Winterhawks, as they gave four future WHL Bantam Draft choices to the Blazers. Jugnauth had been playing for the Badgers in the NCAA, but he recently made the decision to leave the Badgers mid-season to join the Winterhawks, becoming one of only a handful of players to move from the NCAA to the CHL in recent history (Charlie Coyle and Jamie Oleksiak are two players that made that switch).
The Winterhawks have acquired the WHL playing rights to Seattle Kraken prospect Tyson Jugnauth (D-’04) from the Kamloops Blazers in exchange for four draft picks. pic.twitter.com/SP5TO0rlFy
As a sophomore, Jugnauth wanted more responsibility with the Badgers, but they weren’t meeting the needs he felt were best for his development. That left him feeling like he wasn’t a priority of theirs.
“Over time, I wanted to get a little bit more of a role and get more ice time with the team,” Jugnauth said. “But that just wasn’t happening.”
The lack of stable and sufficient opportunities led him to look elsewhere for playing time, and Portland was willing to give those opportunities to him.
“I didn’t know if those trends were going to change, so it was either stick it out there or come play in Portland,” Jugnauth said. “It all happened pretty quickly, but it’s been nice how it’s worked out so far.”
The 19-year-old defenseman from Kelowna, British Columbia, had just two assists in 13 games this season at Wisconsin, a total he has already more than doubled in his short time with the Winterhawks. He has five assists in five games played thus far.
Jugnauth was selected in the fourth round (No. 100) by the Kraken in the 2022 NHL Draft, to which he added that the close proximity Portland has to Seattle helped him to readjust and re-acclimate himself with hockey in the Pacific Northwest.
“[The Kraken] played a huge part in my decision to play here, with also being closer to my hometown of Kelowna. They’ve been helpful with the transition here as well.”
While he may not be playing for the Badgers anymore, he’s still enrolled in classes at Wisconsin. He says he will begin a full transition to Portland’s education program during the new year. “It’s still going to take some time to get settled in here, but so far it’s been really good.”
We knew 22-year-old defense prospect, Ryker Evans, was close to being ready for the NHL when we watched him in Seattle Kraken training camp before this season. In pre-season games, he consistently drove offensive opportunities and always looked so smooth on the ice. So, we weren’t surprised to see him recalled from AHL Coachella Valley last week, but the timing was interesting.
With Seattle in the midst of what would become an eight-game skid, coach Dave Hakstol decided it was time for a jolt to the blue line. In came Evans, and suddenly there was a new rotation happening between Brian Dumoulin and Justin Schultz, with the veterans taking turns being supplanted from the lineup by the rookie.
It got easier for Hakstol to decide which veteran should come out when Schultz became unavailable for a couple games after getting hit in the face with a puck in the 4-3 overtime loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning on Saturday. But now that Schultz is back, we are curious to see how this gets managed moving forward. After all, Evans has done nothing but impress since his arrival.
“I was pretty shocked [to get called up],” Evans said. “I mean, obviously, it’s something you dream of as a kid, and to get the opportunity is pretty cool. It’s kind of just been a whirlwind the last couple of days.”
Impressive start to Evans’ NHL career
Talking to Evans, who has the most level, calm demeanor you can imagine, you would never know he just made his NHL debut a few days ago. His play on the ice mirrors the way he carries himself off the ice, as he has yet to look frazzled in a game. In fact, on his very first NHL shift, he jumped up in the play and led an offensive rush with Tye Kartye, something you wouldn’t expect from a rookie NHLer dealing with the nerves of his debut.
The call-up seems to have come at the right time and has injected more offensive flair into Seattle’s lineup, which has struggled so mightily at that end of the ice. Evans said it was odd to parachute in when the team was in the deepest valley of its season to date.
“It’s tough, obviously, even when you’re losing,” Evans said. “I just wanted to come in and bring as much energy as I could, just bring some new life into the dressing room and kind of find a spark so that we can get back on the winning path here.”
He made some defensive mistakes in that first outing against New Jersey, but we’ve really liked the way he seems to be settling into Seattle’s end of the ice, and his offensive talents have been on full display. In his first game against the Devils, he made a move behind New Jersey’s net to hit the brakes, bump the puck behind himself, and send veteran forward Ondrej Palat flying past him.
Making a play like that in his first NHL game shows the confidence he has in his abilities to actually get players to bite on his moves without too much risk of turning the puck over.
Evans’ first impact on a scoresheet also came off an outstanding play low in the offensive zone in Tuesday’s 4-0 win over the Florida Panthers. Soon after a face-off, he saw a lane open down the half wall. Rather than dumping or rimming the puck around, he took the ice that was being given to him and skated the puck down below the goal line. He swung the puck around and centered a perfect pass for Pierre-Edouard Bellemare to score into a mostly open net and extend Seattle’s lead to 2-0.
“It was good that I was able to help a little bit,” Evans said, with his usual nonchalant tone. “It was great to get the win. We needed that one, and it’s huge for our confidence.”
His teammates are also seeing what we see, a good sign that Evans does have the ability to play consistently at the NHL level. After all, players tend to know when a guy has the “it” factor.
We first heard a player indicate they were impressed by Evans’ aptness when Joey Daccord joined the Sound Of Hockey Podcast during last season. Unprompted, Daccord gushed over how slick Evans was on the ice.
Devin Shore also had very positive commentary on the youngster after Wednesday’s optional practice.
”I’ve been playing with him in [Coachella Valley] too, and he’s been great there,” Shore said. “The name of the game right now is skating, and he obviously has that, and he plays with his head up. So if you got a guy in the back end with the skill that can skate, plays with this head up, good things are gonna happen. I’m really happy for him. He’s a great kid.”
Smooth skating is no accident
Evans was drafted as an over-ager, being passed up by all 31 other NHL teams in the draft prior to Seattle’s inaugural season. The next time around, when the Kraken selected him in the second round, No. 35 overall, we recall seeing draft pundits from far and wide criticizing the team for going “off the board” to select him. Fast forward, and the bold selection seems to be paying off.
The Calgary, Alberta, native said he wasn’t surprised he didn’t get picked in the 2020 draft, the first time he was eligible. “I don’t think I was fully at the point where I could have been drafted,” Evans said. “I just wasn’t developed enough, and I definitely didn’t have a good enough year, and I kind of knew that… Obviously, you hope you get picked. But it’s kind of earned. So I didn’t think I was I was there yet.”
One of the reasons Seattle’s scouting department liked Evans was because of his outstanding skating ability. It’s not just his speed, but his agility in being able to walk the blue line (as seen on the power play) and change directions on a dime that make his movements on the ice look effortless. This skating ability is no accident.
“My dad’s a power skating coach, so growing up, skating was always a No. 1 asset of mine,” Evans said. “Being smaller too, I had to figure out different ways to use my body and stuff like that. So, you just develop those skills growing up like that, and over time, you start to fine tune things.”
“Blade Boy”
In Daccord’s post-game media availability following the win over Florida on Tuesday, he referred to Evans as “Blade Boy” but declined to elaborate on why he calls him that.
Well, it turns out the moniker really does refer to blades, as in skate blades, because Evans is VERY particular about the steel he skates on.
He has 35 pairs of blades that he swaps out approximately every two games, and he keeps track of which pair he’s wearing at any given time. “Right now, I’m wearing set 28 out of 35,” Evans said.
He also is so specific about how he wants them sharpened, he only trusts one person in the world to sharpen his steel, his “guy” back in his hometown of Calgary. That’s not because he doesn’t like the job that gets done by any of the equipment managers on any of the teams he’s played for, he just doesn’t want to change his process.
“I send them back to Calgary to my guy,” Evans said. “It’s no shot at anyone. That’s just what I’ve always done.”
Worth noting, as Evans was telling Sound Of Hockey about the nickname, Chris Driedger walked into the dressing room and gave a big laugh, so clearly the players find Evans’ penchant for perfect steel a bit comical.
We say, if it works, keep doing it. So far for Ryker Evans, it seems to be working.
Darren Brown
Darren Brown is the Chief Content Officer at soundofhockey.com and the host of the Sound Of Hockey Podcast. He is a member of the PHWA and is also usually SOH’s Twitter intern (but please pretend you don’t know that). Follow him @DarrenFunBrown and @sound_hockey or email darren@soundofhockey.com.
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.
Another Monday Musings and another sinking feeling about this team. The Kraken are now 0-4-1 on Saturday nights this season… We all knew the Saturday egg was coming against the Oilers, right? Edmonton was coming off a humiliating loss to the San Jose Sharks, and the Kraken were coming off one of their best games of the season in Colorado, so we had seen this act before.
In fact, we saw it against Calgary just one week prior, and we saw it last season when Vancouver won its first game of the season against the Kraken after starting the season with seven straight losses. I mentally prepared myself for the loss all day Saturday to minimize that sad Sunday vibe that I usually feel after a Saturday loss.
The week wasn’t a total failure. Last week I wrote that I was hoping for four out of six points, but three would be fine. It is fine, but I can’t shake that sinking feeling in my gut that they could have had more points. I think they were probably the better team Tuesday night in Arizona but only came away with a shootout loss and one point. Thursday against the Avs was one of the more exciting games of the season and ended with a last-minute game-winning goal by Oliver Bjorkstrand.
The Avalanche win felt like a signature win to send the boys streaking, but it was not to be.
Lack of high-danger chances
One thing I did not like about the Saturday night game against Edmonton was the lack of high-danger chances. It just never felt like the Kraken were getting looks at the net until the third period when it was way too late. It is not the first time I’ve felt that way in a loss. Here is a look at the number of high-danger shots by game and the game outcomes.
I am not exactly going out on a limb here, but the Kraken need to generate more shots from in close if they expect to win. The Rangers, Flames, and now the Oilers games have felt like Seattle never really had a chance. How they generate those high-danger shots is not clear to me, but it does seem to correlate with players battling through to get to the top of the crease, similar to what Zach Hyman did three times in 10 minutes for the Oilers on Saturday.
Derek Ryan and promoting the game
I always enjoy seeing Derek Ryan visit Climate Pledge Arena. Derek’s journey through Spokane, Canadian College, Swiss league, Swedish league, the AHL, and the NHL is remarkable in its own right. One thing I especially love about Derek is that he took the time to talk to us on the Sound Of Hockey Podcast back in November of 2020. He did not need to talk to us, but he implied he did the interview because he felt it was important to help grow the game and promote the sport. A lot is asked of NHL players and coaches, so when someone outside the Seattle hockey scene like Ryan makes the time for us, it makes me a fan for life.
Other Musings
The Kraken are 4-4-2 in their last 10 games, good for 50 percent of the points available in that time span. It’s not horrible until you realize the Kings, Golden Knights, and Canucks have captured at least 70 percent of the points available to them over their respective last 10 games.
It is still early in the season, but the NHL’s Pacific Division looks daunting. The Kraken have only played one game (Vegas on opening night) against any of the top four teams in the Pacific, and they are 0-3-0 in games against all divisional opponents.
Nobody brings me more joy when they score than Bjorkstrand. I’ve been following his career since he played with the Portland Winterhawks and still think the trade for him last summer was a major coup. I was jumping up and down in Denver when he scored that game winner on Thursday.
You must figure Colorado is going to come into Seattle fuming. They squandered at least a point to the Kraken on Thursday when they allowed a goal with 32 seconds left in regulation and then had a rather embarrassing 8-2 defeat to the Blues at home on Saturday. I am scared already.
It has been fun to see Ryan Winterton get the call-up this week. I think it will be some time before we can call him an everyday NHLer, but even in limited minutes, I like what I’ve seen. He brings more physicality than I would have expected out of a 20-year-old first-year pro getting called up to the NHL. I think he has a bright future in this organization.
Even though Andre Burakovsky was not playing at the level we expected him to play early this season, this team really misses him. He is a huge scoring threat, and having him out crushes Seattle’s depth.
Speaking of Burakovsky, we would like to congratulate him and Johanna on the birth of their baby girl on Wednesday.
The Kraken only had four regulation Saturday losses all last season. They have four so far this season.
I am wondering if I should change this column to Fridays for the sole purpose of feeling better when I write it. The Kraken are 3-1-1 on Thursdays this season. Friday Fusings? I don’t know. We’ll workshop it.
Seattle Kraken fourth-round selection from the 2021 NHL Entry Draft, Ville Ottavainen, had his first North American professional goal over the weekend for Coachella Valley.
Monday night’s game against the Avalanche will be my 100th Seattle Kraken game at Climate Pledge Arena. There are moments where it still feels like a dream. This will be another one of those moments.
Player performances
Jaden Schwartz (SEA) – A regular call-out here on Monday Musings, Schwartz continues to be the best player on the Kraken this season. He has four goals and two assists in five games in November and is on a four-game goal-scoring streak and nine-game point streak.
Andrei Loshko (ROU/SEA) – The Kraken’s fourth-round selection from the 2023 draft had three goals in three games for the Rouyn-Noranda Huskies in the QMJHL over the past week. Loshko gets a lot of praise for his defensive maturity, so it is nice to see him starting to get a bit of a scoring touch.
Connor Bedard (CHI) – Have you heard about this guy? He has six points in the last three games including this little beauty. Bedard and the Blackhawks come to town in mid-December. I imagine that will be a hot ticket.
MacDonald is a freshman at Harvard and has four points in five games.
Chart of the week
This is an updated chart from a couple weeks ago. The chart for the 2022-23 records at this point really illustrates how playoff teams start to establish themselves near the top half of the league around this time of year.
This does not mean that teams need to be in a playoff position at this time of the season, but it pains me to say that no team that had a points percentage of .500 or lower at this stage made the playoffs last season. Yikes.
This is a jam-packed week with four games in six nights and some quality opponents to boot. The Kraken will face an angry Avalanche team on Monday, travel to Edmonton for a single-game road trip on Wednesday night, go back to Climate Pledge Arena on Thursday to host the Islanders, and will close out the week with a game in Vancouver on Saturday night. Four out of eight possible points will be fine, but anything less could be devastating for the team.
I don’t want to look too far ahead, but I am really looking forward to the game on Saturday versus Vancouver. The Canucks are playing extremely well, so I’m hoping the Kraken really elevate their game to compete.
The Seattle Kraken kick off official hockey activities with a two-day rookie camp on Monday and Tuesday, before the full training camp starts Thursday. A lot of the players that will attend the rookie portion are players we saw in the development camp the Kraken hosted in July, but expect higher intensity these next couple days.
A lot of these Seattle Kraken prospects could be years away from making their regular-season NHL debuts, and many will never play for the Kraken. But I always enjoy getting an up-close viewing of Kraken prospects at this point in their careers. Here are four players I am particularly excited about watching.
Carson Rehkopf
Calling out Carson Rehkopf is not exactly going out on a limb. He was the Kraken’s second pick (50th overall) of the most recent NHL Entry Draft, but I feel he could be one of those players we talk about years from now that other teams missed when they had the opportunity to draft him.
I tend to overvalue a prospect’s shooting abilities when compared to his peers, and Rehkopf’s shot really stood out in the group of players at development camp. Another aspect of his game that raised some eyebrows was his poise with the puck. He seemed very patient and often avoided making the obvious pass to instead create an even better scoring opportunity for his team. The sample size was small, and the scenarios were a little different in dev camp, so I hope his performance this week will be consistent with what we saw in July.
2023 fourth-round selection, Andrei Loshko, will not stand out like some prospects in terms of dangles or wicked shots. He is better known for his strong two-way game that could translate to the NHL one day. Originally from Belarus, Loshko has played the last two seasons with the Chicoutimi Sagueneens of the QMJHL, where he put up 70 points over 67 regular-season games in 2022-23. He is considered a bit of a sleeper, so it will be fun to set a baseline at this rookie camp to start tracking his progress over the next few years.
Lukas Dragicevic
I figure that any hardcore Seattle Kraken fan will have plenty of opportunity to see Lukas Dragicevic this season by watching the Tri-City Americans any time they are playing your local US Division WHL team. But it will also be exciting to see how he stacks up against the Kraken prospects. What really fascinates me about Dragicevic is that he switched to defense four seasons ago, explaining his high-end offensive skill. The word around the campfire is that Dragicevic will need to develop his defensive skill, but in the meantime, I will enjoy seeing his offensive prowess on display.
Tucker Robertson
It was not until the OHL playoffs that I watched a lot of Tucker Robertson, and he was a big reason the Peterborough Petes won that league’s championship. The OHL Final was particularly impressive. Robertson had nine points in the series against the London Knights, including one goal and one assist on the Petes’ 2-1 series-clinching victory in Game 6. Robertson might be that elusive right-handed center the Kraken could be looking for. He is expected to be in Coachella Valley this coming season.
If you are not able to attend either of the rookie camp on-ice sessions, a lot of the young players should stick around for at least several days of the main training camp that starts Thursday. The entire schedule can be found here.
With a new crop of prospects from the 2023 NHL Draft, the Seattle Kraken’s farm system is starting to take shape.
The third draft class for Seattle was quite the haul, with 10 picks, four of which were selected in the top 60. Especially with some prospects from Seattle’s debut class graduating from junior hockey to Coachella Valley in the American Hockey League (AHL), the impact of the Kraken scouting staff’s diligence will be felt more now than ever before.
Below is one prospect to watch in the NCAA, Ontario Hockey League (OHL), Quebec Major Junior Hockey League (QMJHL), Western Hockey League, and AHL for this upcoming season.
NCAA – Ben MacDonald (F)
Entering his first season at Harvard, the 19-year-old forward is coming off nearly a point-per-game season with the West Kelowna Warriors, where he scored 50 points in 52 games. The Kraken are clearly high on the Massachusetts native, having traded a pair of fourth-rounders for the privilege of taking MacDonald in the third round of the 2022 NHL Draft.
OHL – Carson Rehkopf (F)
Perhaps an upset pick over Eduard Sale, one of the Kraken’s several second-round picks in the most recent NHL draft is described as a high-energy, high-upside type of prospect. The Kitchener Rangers forward is off to a blistering start in the OHL preseason and could be in for a monster season.
#SeaKraken prospect Carson Rehkopf in OHL preseason action tonight: 3 G, 2 A, 5 PTS, +4, 10 SOG
He now has 5 G, 6 A, 11 PTS, and 27 SOG in 4 GP this preseason.
He’s the choice by default as the lone Kraken prospect in the ‘Q,’ but thankfully for this exercise, Loshko is a pretty interesting prospect. The Belarussian center is entering a new situation after the Chicoutimi Sagueneens dealt him to Rouyn-Noranda. The 6-foot-1 forward finished with 70 points to lead the Sagueneens last season.
WHL – Lukas Dragicevic (D)
An analytical darling in the 2023 draft, Kraken statheads and WHL fans alike were likely thrilled to see Dragicevic in the Kraken system. The 57th overall pick, Dragicevic is a skilled defenseman capable of driving offense and running a power play.
He was already a point-per-game player as an 18-year-old, and the sky’s the limit for the Americans in a seemingly wide-open U.S. Division this upcoming season.
Overseas – Oscar Fisker Mølgaard (F)
His entertaining appearance on the Sound Of Hockey Podcast aside, Fisker Mølgaard is set to play for HV71 in the Swedish Hockey League again after putting up four goals and three assists in 41 games last season. Noted as a detail-oriented center, we’re curious how his offensive game ticks up in his 19-year-old season.
AHL – Ryan Winterton
A significant shoulder injury limited Ryan Winterton the past two seasons, but when healthy, the 20-year-old forward was a dynamic force, especially in last season’s playoffs in the OHL with the London Knights. There, he posted 29 points in 21 games – including a 12-game point streak.
With two consecutive OHL finals appearances, including a Memorial Cup bid with Hamilton, under his belt, Winterton has little to prove in junior hockey. We’re excited to see how he fits in Coachella Valley alongside prospects like Tucker Robertson and Kyle Jackson.
Josh Horton
Josh Horton is a freelance writer, former newspaper journalist, and erstwhile Western Hockey League writer for the Everett Herald and The Spokesman-Review (Spokane). He is NOT a juggler, nor is he a former professional baseball player. Follow him on Twitter @byjoshhorton.
