With AHL affiliate Coachella Valley, newly crowned as Pacific Division champs, getting a first-round bye, any number of Kraken prospects will be practicing diligently with head coach Dan Bylsma and his coaching staff while the Firebirds await a second-round series beginning next week against a to-be-determined opponent. Along with Firebird rookies such as Shane Wright, Ryan Winterton, Logan Morrison, Ville Ottavainen, Jacob Melanson and Tucker Robertson, who have been CVF regulars all season, other draft choices and signees are now on hand for spirited practices and workouts in the southern California desert.
Newer attendees include 2022 second-rounder Jani Nyman (two goals in five AHL games, fresh from breaking a 40-years-standing record of most goals (26 for him this season) by an under-20 player in Finland’s top pro league, Liiga), fellow 2022 second-round forward David Goyette (led the Ontario Hockey League in scoring with 117 points), free agent signee Lleyton Roed, who scored his first AHL goal in his second pro game after his Bemidji State squad was not invited to the NCAA Division I men’s hockey tournament and defenseman/2023 second-rounder Lukas Dragicevic. After his OHL Kitchener club was eliminated in the postseason, another 2023 second-rounder, Carson Rehkopf (second leading OHL goal scorer in the regular season with 52), signed an entry-level contract over the weekend and has since reported to Coachella Valley while a pair of 2023 draft picks, defenseman Caden Price and first-round forward Eduard Sale, are expected to report in the coming days.
It's a lot of bodies for Bylsma and assistants Jessica Campbell and Stu Bickel to manage, but the experience and mentoring gained by the prospects is palpable when fans get to see those players blossom either this spring or potentially next season in the AHL. Prospects drafted in 2021, such as Winterton, Ottavainen and Melanson (rounds three to five, respectively), are all vocal about the high value of the springtime assignment after the 2022-23 seasons ended.
Ryker On
One of those “prospects” joining is defenseman Ryker Evans, who appeared in 31 games for the Kraken this season but played at an All-Star caliber level during the first half of the AHL season. He traveled with the NHL club pretty much the entire second half of the hockey year, serving as a reserve at times, which in part prompted the decision for the 2021 second-rounder to get more games and playoff time on ice this spring. He impressed everyone in the Kraken locker room and was praised by Ron Francis in the Seattle GM’s end-of-season media conference on Monday this week.
“He's a terrific kid,” said Francis about the defenseman, who turned 22 in December. “He continues to work hard. I felt when he got the chance to get in the lineup, and especially for me down the stretch in some tough games, he really showed his development. There's no doubt in my mind he's in our [Kraken] lineup coming into camp next year. He's been that good.”
Kokko, Pelicans Get back into Series
Kraken prospect Niklas Kokko made 30 saves in a 2-1 victory Wednesday for his Lahti Pelicans squad over Tappara in the best-of-seven championship final of Liiga, Finland’s highly respected top pro hockey league. The just-turned-20-year-old goaltender has posted a save percentage of .922 in the first three games of the title series to continue a postseason run with a .926 overall save percentage to back up a 9-6 record (two series won) and a 1.59 goals against average.
The series opened in Tampere, home city for Tappara, with Pelicans losing, 3-1, before a crowd of 12,000-plus. Game 2 moved to Lahti, with Tappara jumping out to a 3-0 lead before Kokko backstopped a clean sheet from the mid-second period on the way to 31 saves on the night. His teammates scored twice but couldn’t get a third to push into overtime. Kokko’s move to Pelicans from his original club, Karpat (which fell to the 6-foot-4 Kokko and Pelicans in the semifinals), has been a revelation for Lahti-based fans and the entire Liiga. Now the Kraken 2022 second-rounder (No. 58 overall) has a chance to unseat two-time defending champion Tappara, which is in its fourth straight final and also won the Liiga gold medal from 2013 through 2019 and has 19 championships overall.
Prospect Pipeline Ahead of Schedule?
With just three draft classes plus some impressive free-agent signings, the Kraken are already considered among the top third among all NHL franchises for prospects' production and potential.
Along with the aforementioned draft picks, Western Hockey League leading scorer Jagger Firkus (2022 second round, No. 35 overall) is playing in the WHL Eastern Conference final that starts Friday. Firkus led the WHL in scoring this season (61 goals and 65 assists for 126 points) and has nine goals and nine assists in nine playoff games this spring. In the WHL Western Conference, emerging defenseman Tyson Jugnauth helped his Portland Winterhawks team advance two rounds, notching a goal and ten assists and lots of work on both power-play and penalty-kill units. In the OHL, 2022, third-rounder and defenseman Ty Nelson, who worked through injury issues during the regular season, appears to be playing his best hockey as his North Bay Battalion squad has also advanced to a conference final.
The Kraken’s list free-agent signees of undrafted players who have aged out of the NHL draft is headlined by Tye Kartye (2022-23 AHL rookie of the year who was stellar in the 2023 Stanley Cup Playoffs and played the whole year with the Kraken this season, leading the team in hits and scoring 11 goals) and Logan Morrison (who drew praise for his high hockey IQ from Dave Hakstol and several Kraken veterans) during his NHL call-up.
You might propose that the Kraken’s prospect pipeline is ahead of schedule. I did during the Ron Francis press meet-and-greet Monday, and here’s what the Hall of Fame player who debuted mid-NHL season as an 18-year-old (after one more half-season blitzing opponents on the Ontario Hockey League) had to say:
“Well, I think it's a credit to our amateur staff, right?” said Francis. “And our development staff. These guys work extremely hard in finding talent and then drafting them and then developing them. Last year in Coachella, we were one of the oldest teams [average age]. This year we went to the 20th oldest team [out of 32]. We have a lot of our kids from our first draft and some from our second draft finally coming into the pipeline [playing a full season in the AHL, plus 2022 seventh-rounder Kyle Jackson playing for ECHL affiliate Kansas City]. That team [the AHL Firebirds] not only had a good year but won the division title and got a first-round bye. The exciting thing for me is for those kids to play in a winning environment. They're learning how to win; they're gonna get into tough playoff games and see what that's all about.
“It's different in hockey than in some of the other sports. It takes time to get them there. As it goes great, sometimes they struggle, and we have to help them get out of that. We’re really excited about what we have coming. Now the key is building the team here and integrating those pieces that we think are now starting to come to make us more successful moving forward.”
Look for “Depth of the Sea: Playoffs Editon" stories every Thursday during the postseason for all Kraken prospects still on the ice, plus occasional news updates on Mondays.
