The puck drops at 7:00 pm PT tonight on a new season for the Coachella Valley Firebirds, the Kraken’s AHL affiliate. Between Josh Horton, me, and the rest of the Sound Of Hockey team, we hope to bring you more Firebirds and Kraken prospect coverage than ever this year. We’re brainstorming a few ideas on how to do that, so we hope you follow along. Let’s start our journey in the desert by reacquainting ourselves with the team, previewing the lineup, and identifying a few storylines to follow early this season.
But, before we get to that, an important public service announcement: The Firebirds’ opener tonight, October 13, against the Bakersfield Condors is free to stream on AHL TV. Check it out here.
Recapping the 2022-23 Season
In their inaugural season, the Firebirds made quite the impression. Coachella Valley racked up 103 points in the standings, second in the AHL only to the Calgary Wranglers. The team was strong across the board in the regular season, checking in with the third most goals scored and second best goal differential among the 32 AHL clubs. That strength extended into the goal with Joey Daccord tallying .918 save percentage in 38 regular season games.
The season culminated with a championship run that came agonizingly close to the Calder Cup. In their record-setting 26th postseason game, the Firebirds made it to overtime of game 7 of the finals against the Hershey Bears before a Mike Vecchione shot snuck by Joey Daccord to deliver victory to the AHL’s oldest franchise. Hard to imagine a tougher end to the season, but it is also hard to imagine a team and a fanbase that had more fun along the way than the 2022-23 Coachella Valley Firebirds.
The 2023-24 lineup
On October 10, 2023, the Coachella Valley Firebirds reassigned eight players to the Kansas City Mavericks of the ECHL, including 2022 7th round draft pick Kyle Jackson. This brought some clarity to the team’s initial roster, which stands at 27 players:
The team rotated the lines and pairs in their only preseason outing on October 8, 2023, so we don’t have a great sense of precisely how these players will fit together when the team takes the ice on Friday night.
Last season we often saw Kole Lind and captain Max McCormick skating together on a top line (often centered by the departed Alex True). I wouldn’t expect that change. Andrew Poturalski and Cameron Hughes were also stalwarts in the top-six, and I’d expect that to continue as well. On the blue line, the team’s top two left-shot defenseman return in Gustav Olofsson and Ryker Evans, but there has been some shuffling on the right side.
Without the benefit of being at practice or the preseason games, here is a guess (and I emphasize guess) at a lineup the team could deploy Friday night:
If the team holds out Shore or Hayden based on the injury situation in Seattle, I’d expect one of Robertson or Melanson to draw in.
Having shared this guesswork, I’ll also caution against overreacting to a veteran-heavy opening night lineup if Robertson, Melanson, or Ottavainen aren’t in there, for example. The team did not have much preseason ice time, particularly after the team’s first exhibition was canceled due to a power outage. After the Friday night opener, the team does not have another regular season game for eight days. This leaves ample runway for the Firebirds to practice and evaluate its group of young players before game number two.
How the Firebirds stack up around the AHL
Though several Seattle Kraken drafted prospects have begun to arrive in the desert, the team is still a year-or-two away from a “normal” situation where draft picks are regularly cycling in-and-out. As a result, the team remains heavy on veterans. According to data tracked by Elite Prospects, the Firebirds will start the 2023-24 season as the tenth-oldest AHL team based on average player age. (The Firebirds were the fifth-oldest AHL team by the same metric last year.)
This year’s squad will be increasingly reliant on speed and skill. While the team ranked among the top-ten tallest and heaviest teams last season, based on player averages, many of the squad’s larger players up front and on the blue line departed in the offseason. This leaves the team in the no. 25 in the league average player height and middle-of-the-pack in player weight.
The skill should still be there though. The team returns two top-20 scorers in Max McCormick and Kole Lind, another just outside the top-30 in Cameron Hughes, and a player in Andrew Poturalski who has led the AHL in scoring in the past (though he missed time with an injury last year). Add to this stable of veteran scorers a wave of younger players that have scored effectively at junior levels and the team should do well putting the puck in the net.
Finally, as I noted earlier in the summer, this is one of the more expensive rosters in the AHL. The Kraken have invested heavily in a winning development program. The product in Palm Desert should remain strong.
Andrew Poturalski skates at Climate Pledge Arena (Photo/Brian Liesse)
Key departures
The team sees its starting goaltender (and one of its emotional leaders), Joey Daccord, and third leading scorer, Tye Kartye, begin the season with the Seattle Kraken. Beyond that, the team lost its sixth leading scorer, Jesper Froden and inaugural Kraken Alexander True and Carsen Twarynski in free agency. On the blue line, the team lost its top scoring defenseman, Brogan Rafferty, and an experienced, tough player in Matt Tennyson. I don’t have many questions about the team’s scoring ability, but goal prevention will be an area to watch early in the season.
Key additions
Former Charlotte Checker and offensive-minded, right-shot defenseman Connor Carrick rejoins the Kraken organization for the 2023-24 season. In doing so, he’ll be reunited with former Checker teammate and fellow righty defenseman Cale Fleury, who will begin the season with Coachella Valley after sticking in Seattle for the entirety of the 2022-23 campaign. Marian Studenic is a proven and prolific AHL goal scorer up front the team added in free agency.
Coachella Valley also welcomes a group of six Kraken prospects to the team, each of whom could play a role at some point during the season: Shane Wright, Ryan Winterson, Tucker Robertson, Jacob Melanson, Logan Morrison, and Ville Ottaivenen.
Three storylines to watch early in the season
Shane Wright. This is the big one. Wright logged 32 games with the Firebirds last season, mostly in the playoffs, but it was amidst a “planes trains and automobiles” season that likely left his head spinning. This year, there is no such uncertainty about where he’ll play or how much he’ll play. Kraken GM Ron Francis told the media after Wright’s reassignment that the team had given Wright areas to work on and the team was looking forward to seeing him play heavy minutes in all situations. Wright’s development is the biggest storyline to follow from the Kraken perspective because the young forward’s potential is so high if he can put the pieces together.
Shane Wright skates during camp scrimmage (Photo/Brian Liesse)
The goaltending tandem. Chris Driedger should be the stronger half of a tandem in goal as he comes back from an ACL injury at the 2022 World Championships. If he can start to show he is still the player that the Kraken targeted and signed to be one of the team’s NHL goalies before its inaugural season, interest may grow internally and from other clubs to get him back to the NHL.
Driedger’s partner, Ales Stezka, is also interesting. Stezka is coming off an elite season in the Czech Extraliga, which is one of the best professional leagues in the world. Already 26 years old, he’s entering his goalie prime. If he can translate his high level play to North America, he’ll put Coachella Valley in a great position to win this season and give the Kraken a lot to think about when it comes to extending the relationship beyond Stezka’s current one-year deal.
Prospects that acclimate quickly. The story of Tye Kartye is well-known at this point. Despite coming in as an undrafted free agent, Kartye forced his way into the lineup of a talented Coachella Valley club last year. Then, as the season progressed, he worked his way up the lineup, and eventually he skated with the Kraken in the playoffs.
Is there a rookie that takes the same trajectory this year? That’s a hard standard to live up to, but it starts early in the season with ice time. Which young players have gained the coaching staff’s confidence and have seized a role?
Lesser known players like Morrison, Robertson, and Melanson all have the potential to do it. Morrison brings skill and offensive instincts if he can up his skating game like Kartye did. Robertson is a 200-foot center with high level hockey sense who could emerge if he can score just enough. Melanson is a physical player and agitator with enough skill to score in a professional lineup if he can maintain his sandpaper play style against bigger and faster competition. All eyes will be on them from Seattle.
It is no secret that an area where the Seattle Kraken have an opportunity to improve this season is their power play. That’s not to say it was horrible all last season – Seattle ranked 21st in the league – but isolating just playoff teams, they ranked 14th out of the 16 teams that qualified for the postseason. We recently posted a breakdown on how the team looks to improve the power play by starting off with a different look this season.
To get a better understanding of how the power play performed last season, I spent some time digging into the numbers and wanted to share my findings.
Pre-Burakovsky/Post-Burakovsky
There is a commonly cited theory that the Seattle Kraken power play took a huge hit when Andre Burakovsky went down with a season-ending groin injury in 2022-23. Let’s look at the numbers.
With a 0.9 percent drop in production after the injury, that theory might have merit. The fact of the matter, though, is that power play percentages drop later in the season.
At the time of the injury, Burakovsky led the team in power-play points with 14 and was second among forwards with 126:37 of power-play ice-time. Losing a weapon like Burakovsky was significant, but I do not think the team will improve drastically this season just because Burakovsky is back. The Kraken do need to make other tweaks, as Darren laid out in his article last week.
Power-play possession
There were times last season where it felt the power play was spending a disproportionate amount of time on the power play outside of the offensive zone. Some of this sentiment was driven by low face-off percentages with the manpower advantage. A common scenario was that the Kraken would start a power play with an offensive-zone face-off. They would lose the draw and possession, and the opposing team would clear the puck out of the zone, killing 10 to 15 seconds of the Kraken power play.
Although not a perfect proxy for possession, the Kraken were second to last in power-play face-off percentage last season.
The other area where the Kraken appeared to struggle without Burakovsky was offensive-zone entries. I am unaware of publicly available (a.k.a. “free”) data on zone entries, but one thing we can evaluate is the rate of shot attempts on a power play. Again, it’s not perfect for analyzing offensive-zone possession time, but it is a very good proxy, since the more often you have the puck in the offensive zone, the more likely you will have a shot attempt.
To show my work, I counted all the shot attempts (shots, blocked shots, missed shots) on a power play then divided by a team’s total power play to get shot attempts per power-play second. To make the number more relatable, I multiplied the shot attempts per power play second by 120 seconds. That gets us a shot attempt rate per two minutes, the usual length of a power play.
Using the shot attempts rate by power play time, we can see that the Kraken did have an issue with possession on the power play last season. The Kraken ranked 25th and last amongst playoff teams in generating shots per two minutes of power play time. We do not know the root cause of this issue, but it is probably a combination of face-off percentage on the power play, zone entries, and maintaining possession in the offensive zone. This shot attempt rate is something we will keep an eye on in the coming season.
Dry spells
During training camp last week, coach Dave Hakstol called out droughts and a lack of consistency that hurt the power play last season.
I certainly remember the Kraken going through dry spells, but I have always thought that is part of the cyclical nature of a hockey season. This is another area to focus on this season. Are the dry spells shorter and less frequent? Let’s hope so.
Who is getting the PP time?
Finally, I wanted to look at who was getting the power-play ice time and identify any potential changes for the upcoming season. To do that, I wanted to look at how the power-play time changed over the season, particularly before and after the Burakovsky injury.
The table shows that Eeli Tolvanen and Yanni Gourde picked up the extra time when Burakovsky went down in early February. With Burakovsky starting this season healthy, you can anticipate his power-play time to come back, but Tolvanen should remain on the power play with the departure of Daniel Sprong in the offseason. Sprong was on the ice for 40 percent of the Kraken’s power play when he was in the lineup.
Power play outlook
Without any substantial personnel changes to the Seattle Kraken roster this offseason, the changes will need to come from within. Getting Burakovsky back to start the season will certainly help, but the team will need to create different looks and options if it expects improvement in production. The Kraken’s new approach has showed promise in preseason. Will it carry over to the regular season?
Welcome to the inaugural Deep Sea Blue Chips, a ranking of the top Seattle Kraken prospects according to public scouting services and prospect analysts.
As mentioned on Episode 252 of the Sound Of Hockey Podcast, I compiled seven public sources providing rankings of the best prospects in the Kraken system and built an overall composite ranking. The sources I used are:
Similar to my process in building the Sound of Hockey Big Board, an NHL Draft prospect ranking, I built this list using a weighted geometric mean calculation. Why did I use a geometric mean? Read up here. Weights were assigned based on our assessment of the depth of experience, sourced reporting, or scouting insight factored into the component lists themselves.
How do the Deep Sea Blue Chips compare with the data-only list I made earlier in the offseason? Where does it depart from the views of Kraken fans polled via social media? Let’s start with the Blue Chips list and then I’ll take a look at those other questions.
Deep Sea Blue Chips
You can view the full list in Google Sheets HERE. The sheet includes each player’s composite rank and a lot more data about each player.
Important note on using the Deep Sea Blue Chips Google Sheet: To filter the data by various categories, highlight row 2, then select “Data,” “Filter Views,” and “Create New Temporary Filter View.” This will allow you to manipulate the data in a way visible only to you.
The fans weigh in
Is there anyone you think is underrated or overrated in our inaugural Deep Sea Blue Chips? Without divulging the list, I asked a few Sound Of Hockey community members on various social media platforms to make their own ranking of top Seattle Kraken prospects. I fashioned their answers into a composite list too. Here is what our (highly unscientific) sample of 12 Kraken fans came up with:
The fans are much higher than the scouts on forwards Jacob Melanson and Kole Lind, as well as Tye Kartye and Ty Nelson, but lower on 2023 defenseman draft picks Lukas Dragicevic and Caden Price, among others. Who do you think has it right?
The spreadsheets would like a word
A couple weeks ago I published a “data-only” ranking of every NHL-affiliated skater prospect. As detailed in that piece, I built the ranking based on Thibaud Chatel’s NHLe work. I didn’t rank goalies, but the Kraken skaters checked in as follows:
The data suggests David Goyette and Logan Morrison might be underrated by the scouts and the fans. On the other hand, draft year NHLe calculations raise some questions about the future potential of players like Eduard Sale, Oscar Fisker Molgaard, and Carson Rehkopf, for example. Do you think the scouting-based Deep Sea Blue Chips rank is better? Or do you favor the approach emphasizing scoring data?
Next Up: Discussing the year ahead
Your Sound Of Hockey prospect contributors discuss the Deep Sea Blue Chips ranking, the prospects we’ll be watching this season, and a few bold predictions. Any topics or players you’d like us to cover? Drop us a note on Twitter or in the comments below.
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 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.
On last week’s episode of the Sound Of Hockey Podcast, I forecasted that the biggest need for the Seattle Kraken early in the 2023-24 NHL season will be a right-handed center. This was not the first time I mentioned the need after the Kraken chose to not qualify the only right-handed center on the team from last year, Morgan Geekie. At the core of this need is the option to deploy a right-handed center to take strategic faceoffs from a right-hander’s strong side.
Before anybody goes right to the comments section to tell me faceoffs don’t matter, let me state that I do acknowledge that faceoffs are not as important as we once thought they were, and possession after a faceoff is a better measure of success. The possession stat is not captured and shared publicly, but we do know that faceoff wins and losses are a leading indicator of that possession, so we are going to work with the tools that are publicly available to us.
Seattle Kraken faceoff numbers last season
Let’s call out the obvious; the Kraken were one of the worst teams in the league for faceoffs last season. Early in the campaign, it was an easy stat to pick on, particularly when the team had challenges on the power play, as it seemed to have frequently. Teams were able to win the faceoff and clear the zone, killing valuable time even before Seattle could get set up. The dismal faceoff numbers also seemed to drive speculation from national media types that the Kraken would target a center at the trade deadline last season.
Faceoff deployments in the defensive zone
There is a strong side and a weak side for faceoffs. Right-shot centers tend to favor winning faceoffs on their backhand to the back right of the faceoff circle. Conversely, left-handers will try to win it to their back left.
The area on the ice in which this is particularly important is when the faceoff is in the defensive zone. If the faceoff is to the right of the goalie, ideally you have a right-hander take the draw, so they can try to win it to the corner, or, at the very least, keep it out of the center of the ice. If you have a left-hander taking a faceoff on the right side, there is a danger that the center could win or just direct it toward the center of the ice or toward the net.
See Exhibit A below.
Let’s see how centers were deployed in the defensive zone based on their handedness.
One item of note is that the total number of faceoffs taken by lefties is much higher. This is largely because roughly 66 percent of the centers in the league are left-handed, and as far as I know, there are no ambidextrous centers in the league, which would make the right-handers around 33 percent.
Because of this scarcity of righties in the league, the deployment of lefties based on the side of the ice is not as pronounced. But righties are deployed significantly more on the right side with 72.4 percent of their faceoffs taken in the defensive zone on the right side.
For lefties, you can see the advantage of the strong side, winning 53.6 percent of defensive-zone faceoffs, compared to just 45.0 percent on the weak side.
Kraken faceoff deployments in the defensive zone
Now let’s take a deeper look at how the Kraken leveraged their centers last season and how they fared at the defensive-zone faceoff dots.
As expected, Morgan Geekie, Seattle’s only right-handed center, was heavily deployed on the right shooter’s strong side in the defensive zone. At 47.1 percent, he had the highest win percentage on that specific faceoff circle.
Next let’s remove Geekie and add Pierre-Edouard Bellemare, the expected fourth-line center to start 2023-24.
On the surface, the faceoff percentage should go up, but it doesn’t account that 80 percent of Geekie’s faceoffs were taken on the right-hander’s strong side. Bellemare will not be deployed in the same way, and someone will need to take those faceoffs to the right of the goalie in the defensive zone.
Shortcomings of measuring faceoffs
There has been research to suggest that faceoff winning percentages do not have a significant impact on games, and most people I talk to in the hockey world imply there is a more important stat of gaining possession after a faceoff. The players on the ice all have a role to play in the faceoff and could impact who wins possession. Here are two of my favorite examples of these shortcomings.
This first example is when the Kraken “lose” the opening faceoff in overtime against the Capitals.
The second is when the Kraken “win” the faceoff in a playoff game against the Avalanche.
In both cases, the team that won the faceoff never really possessed the puck but still got credit for winning the faceoff.
Shots against after faceoffs
In a perfect world, we have a statistic that captures which team gains clear possession of the puck after a faceoff. This would be a team stat that considers all players on the ice and their ability to gain possession… but we don’t have that.
A proxy that is often used is shot attempts and shot attempts against after a faceoff within a designated time interval. I asked around about the interval, and the consensus I got back was five seconds. The logic here is if a team attempts a shot within a five-second interval of a draw, they will have successfully gained possession. Conversely, you can evaluate a team’s performance at gaining possession after a faceoff by seeing the rate at which they allow shot attempts after a faceoff.
For consistency in the analysis, we are going to focus on defensive-zone faceoffs. Let’s first look at the raw numbers of shot attempts against within five seconds of a defensive-zone faceoff.
When evaluating just on a volume basis, there does not seem to be an issue with the Kraken’s ability to gain possession after a defensive-zone faceoff. They are squarely in the middle of the league, ranking 16th in shot attempts allowed within five seconds of a defensive-zone faceoff.
Analyzing the performance on a volume basis is flawed, though, because a team, for whatever reason, might have a lower number of defensive-zone faceoffs, which might reduce the volume of shot attempts allowed. A better approach will be to look at the rate at which a team allows shot attempts after faceoffs.
This visual starts to tell a different story. The Kraken were ranked 26th in the league at the rate that they allowed shot attempts within five seconds of a defensive faceoff with only one playoff team below them, the Minnesota Wild.
We can slice it one more layer to hone in on the actual faceoff circle in question and see how the Kraken performed. To differentiate the two circles, we are going to label them from the goalie’s perspective, so the “Defensive-Right” is the circle to the immediate right of the goalie, while “Defensive-Left” is the circle to the immediate left of the goalie. To remind people, the Defensive-Right faceoff circle is a right-hander’s strong side, while the “Defensive-Left” is the left-hander’s strong side.
Consistent with the faceoff percentages, the Kraken struggled with relinquishing possession after faceoffs from the Defensive-Right circle; they ranked 28th in the league at the rate in which teams get shot attempts within five seconds of the faceoff.
No easy fix
As I stated in the beginning, the Kraken need a right-handed center to deploy on the right-side defensive-zone faceoff circle, but it is unlikely we will see any roster moves before the season starts. Of the right-handed centermen available during free agency, only J.T. Compher, Luke Glendening, and Noel Acciari would have been candidates that could have been targets that fit this profile. And who knows if the Kraken made a run at any of them?
It is also naïve to think there isn’t a host of other factors when targeting free agents, including contract terms and long-term fit within the organization. Also, it is important to point out that Shane Wright is a right-handed center, but it would be asking a lot of a rookie to be that stable right-handed option as he gets used to the speed and the strength of the game.
Is it October yet?
I hope some of you feel a little bit more enlightened on faceoffs, and I also want to recognize my own insanity that I put the time and research I put into evaluating defensive-zone faceoffs. It was fun, insightful, and interesting for me, but come on, a 1500-word post on defensive-zone faceoffs?
If you have thoughts, questions, or want to see some specific teams or players broken down, leave a note in the comments section and I will do my best to get back to you.
From July 29 through Aug. 4, some of the best under-20 players from the United States, Finland, and Sweden met at the home of the U.S. National Team Development Program in Plymouth, Mich. Each team has the same goal: Winning the 2024 World Junior Championship starting in December. This summer exhibition–dubbed the World Junior Summer Showcase–is all about evaluation. Which players should be on the World Juniors rosters?
Four players drafted by the Seattle Kraken saw playing time at the event: Finns Jani Nyman (No. 49 overall in the 2022 draft), Niklas Kokko (No. 58/2022), and Visa Vedenpaa (No. 168/2023), and Swede Zeb Forsfjall (No. 180/2023). I was able to watch all of Team Finland’s games and two of Team Sweden’s games. How did the players look? Are they likely to make the World Juniors rosters for their respective nations?
Since it’s a slow month on the hockey calendar, and this is a good excuse to check in on a few prospects, let’s dive in with Kraken-related takeaways and videos from the World Junior Summer Showcase.
Jani Nyman, LW, Finland
Showcase statistics. Nyman had two goals, zero assists, and three minor penalties (roughing x2, tripping) in four games played.
Tape analysis. Nyman played the left wing in a top-six role for the entire tournament. He did not play on the penalty kill, but he was a fixture on the first power-play unit. He served as one of the two trailing forwards on the man advantage–one of the players who attempts a controlled-carry zone entry to set up the unit in the offensive zone. (The Kraken used Andre Burakovsky, Jordan Eberle, and Alex Wennberg, among others, in a similar role in 2022-23.) Once established in the zone, he was most commonly on the right side half wall, looking to unleash one-timers from the right-wing circle. He scored on one such opportunity.
He looks like he has “it” when it comes to this kind of shot. By no means do I mean to suggest he’s going to score like Alex Ovechkin or David Pastrnak on the man advantage, but could he get close to Daniel Sprong’s production with his shot someday? Some players drill this shot constantly and never quite find it consistently enough. Nyman doesn’t have this problem. If given the opportunity in the NHL, I’d project him to rack up five-plus goals each season on that shot alone.
The rest of Nyman’s game is an incredibly challenging evaluation, I think. He has a number of strong discrete skills. He can shoot and pass at an NHL level. He can use his body to protect the puck and his strength to win board battles. He uses a physical style to drive play toward the opponent’s net regularly. And he plays with some edge, frequently entering the fray to stand up for a teammate.
But I also saw a player who struggled to stitch together his skills into cohesive, high-end play. He is a slower, hunched skater. He struggled to get the puck through the neutral zone with control at five-on-five because he can’t get much separation from the defense. He won’t win many chase situations and, worse, he often seemed to give up on plays where a foot race became necessary. On the defensive end, his feet deadened too often, and he was left to reach on a poke check. This led to a preventable tripping penalty in one game. Off the puck, he offered very little engagement defensively.
So, I oscillated between thinking “this is one of the most exciting prospects Seattle has” and doubts that he just won’t be able to succeed at a higher level where skilled players can exploit his flaws. I also started wondering whether there is some kind of sheltered bottom-line-and-power-play role that could get his shot onto NHL ice even if the other aspects of his game don’t progress, but I was left a bit pessimistic about that concept.
All of that said, Nyman is still young. He just turned 19 on July 30. He has plenty more development yet to come. And the “highs” are quite high for Nyman already. Indeed, good friend of the Sound of Hockey Podcast, Chris Peters, had Nyman as a player that stood out positively at the Showcase. I’ll be watching Nyman’s season closely.
World Juniors verdict. Nyman will be a top-six (likely top-line) left wing for Finland at the World Junior Championships.
Zeb Forsfjall, C, Sweden
Showcase statistics. Forsfjall had one goal, zero assists, and one minor penalty (cross-checking) in four games played.
Tape analysis. Team Sweden used Forsfjall as its bottom-line pivot and on the penalty kill. Through the two games I watched, I found it very easy to love this player. Forsfjall has easy, joystick-style mobility on the ice. He can get to anywhere the play dictates. His straight-line speed is also very good, even if a step down from elite. Finally, he displays strong puck-possession skill through the neutral zone.
Beyond that, his skills aren’t “loud,” but he gets results. He deploys a high-energy and engaged play style, particularly in the defensive zone. He has good instincts on the penalty kill and uses his speed to pressure opponents at the correct times.
As an undersized center, Forsfjall has a bit of Yanni Gourde in his game. But he’ll need to add some bulk if he’s going to play a hard-charging, forechecking style like No. 37 in deep sea blue. Forsjfall was willing but not always effective at winning puck battles at the World Junior Summer Showcase.
On the offensive side, Forsfjall showed enough passing and shooting skill to score opportunistically.
The question on Forsfjall is two-fold: Can he add strength, and can he continue to develop his offensive game? With modest gains in each area, it’s not difficult to imagine him finding a job as an NHL role player down the line. If this is the outcome, it’s outstanding value from a sixth-round draft pick.
World Juniors verdict. I highly doubt Forsfjall will be on Team Sweden this year, but if he can get a little stronger over the next year, I could imagine him securing a bottom-line, energy role for Sweden in 2025. You can’t say that about too many players drafted 180th overall in the NHL Draft.
Niklas Kokko, G, Finland
Showcase statistics. Kokko allowed 8 goals on 87 shots on goal, for a .908 save percentage. He won two games and dropped one.
Tape analysis. Kokko played three of the four games in this exhibition tune-up and looked calm and collected doing it. He used his big frame well, anticipated plays, and flashed a quick glove to deny a couple clean breakaway looks.
From my vantage, he looked like Finland’s second-best player across these four games. Cam Robinson of Elite Prospects was similarly complimentary of Kokko’s performance. As of this check in, Kokko’s development seems to be “on track” for an aggressive move to the AHL in the 2024-25 season as a 20-year-old.
World Juniors verdict. Kokko appears firmly entrenched as the projected starter for Team Finland at the 2024 World Juniors. Performance this fall will be a factor, but absent a collapse from Kokko, the job should be his, with Topias Leinonen his backup.
Visa Vedenpaa, G, Finland
Showcase statistics. Vedenpaa allowed 4 goals on 24 shots on goal, for a .833 save percentage. He was the losing goalie in his only start.
Tape analysis. Vedenpaa faced a number of tough looks in his one start, but he held up his end of the bargain for the most part. He’s trained in the same style as Kokko, but noticeably a bit smaller in the net. Vedenpaa found himself out of position at times, but he was often able to save himself with skilled and athletic plays.
World Juniors verdict. Vedenpaa won’t be in net for Finland this year, but his presence with the national team suggests he is in the running for the job in 2025. If he is one of the team’s final cuts or accompanies the team as an extra player who never suits up at this year’s World Junior Championship–as Kokko did last year–it will be a strong endorsement of his future outlook.
Other takeaways from the Showcase
Admittedly, I was watching Team Finland closer than the other squads, but the only player that I thought beat out Kokko in this exhibition was Finnish forward Lenni Hämeenaho.
New Jersey picked the native of Kajaani, Finland, at No. 58 in the 2023 NHL Draft–just after Seattle’s run of three second-round picks. Hämeenaho had played his entire draft season in Finland’s top professional league, Liiga, and performed incredibly well for his age, tallying 25 points in 59 total games. In my adjusted “NHL equivalency” calculation, his data netted out in the late-first-round range. Combined with scouting reports endorsing him as a second-round option (he ranked No. 56 on the Big Board), I thought a number of factors lined up to make him a strong option for Seattle with one of their second-round picks. Seattle didn’t go that way.
At the World Junior Summer Showcase, Hämeenaho showed off a diverse skillset as a top-six winger. He can skate, pass, shoot, possess the puck, forecheck, and backcheck, all from a frame that appears almost NHL-ready. He was often the best player on the ice, even though he was surrounded by players drafted higher. The knock on him before the draft was that he may have a low ceiling. And that may be. None of his skills looked “elite” to me. He’s probably a middle-six winger in the best case. But at this exhibition he was able to link up a number of strong skills and deliver a very impressive performance. He’ll be a player I watch and wonder about from a Kraken perspective.
Beyond Hämeenaho, two players that stood out to me were the 2024 draft-eligible Finnish center Konsta Helenius and the 2025 (!) draft-eligible U.S. center James Hagens.
Helenius is a bit undersized and struggled on the faceoff dot at times, but he brought an impressive defensive game and showed signs of offense too despite playing against players a year or more older than him. He was one of Finland’s better players up front and could be a top-15 pick next summer.
Hagens, who is just 16 years old, did not look out of place despite playing two-plus years up. He played a lower-leverage role, but showed flashes of pretty much every trait you could want in a player. If the 2025 NHL Draft is destined to be the “Michael Misa” year, Hagens could be in the conversation with any player after that.
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.
