“Down on the Farm” is your weekly Seattle Kraken prospects update. This week we’ll dig in on the 2025-26 Coachella Valley Firebirds as they prepare for their AHL season opener, while also passing along news and notes, data updates, and scouting video from across the Kraken prospect landscape. As always, if you have a Kraken 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 dive in.
Firebirds to take the ice with young, exciting roster, and lineup questions
The Coachella Valley Firebirds will drop the puck on their fourth season on Friday. Remarkably, in each of the team’s first three years of existence, the Kraken AHL affiliate’s final loss has come in the playoffs to the eventual Calder Cup champion.
In the team’s first two seasons, that success was built on a veteran lineup that ranked among the oldest in the league. Powered by proven AHL players like Andrew Poturalski, Kole Lind, and Cameron Hughes, and guided by Dan Bylsma and his staff, the team went to the Calder Cup Finals each year.
Last season was one of transition. The team integrated a new bench boss in Derek Laxdal and a number of younger Kraken drafted players, including Ty Nelson, Jagger Firkus, and David Goyette. Notwithstanding all of that change, the season was a success as the Firebirds advanced to the second round of the playoffs before falling to Abbotsford.
This year, the youth movement is complete. With a wave of drafted prospects on entry-level contracts reaching the professional ranks, the Firebirds will rank as one of the youngest teams in the AHL, if not the youngest.
Data compiled by Elite Prospects has the current Firebirds roster as the third youngest and third least experienced in the AHL. Yet, this does not account for the season-ending hip surgery for veteran captain Max McCormick. Removing McCormick from the equation, the Firebirds Opening Day average age dips to 23.04, which would be—by far—the lowest in the AHL.
The challenge ahead to repeat the team’s previous success is evident. “It is a young roster,” Firebirds vice president of hockey and business operations Troy Bodie conceded in an interview on the Fire & Ice Podcast, but “it’s a talented group.” Bodie noted “the team has drafted well,” before calling out forward Oscar Fisker Molgaard and defenseman Tyson Jugnauth as new players primed for important roles. “They’re going to be fan favorites quite early.”
The current Opening Day lineup projects to have only three players that qualify toward the five veteran player limit: Forwards Mitchell Stephens and John Hayden and defenseman Gustav Olofsson. Beyond that group, forwards Ben Meyers and Ian McKinnon figure to be influential figures, but, as Bodie conceded, leadership and high-leverage minutes are going to have to come from elsewhere too.
The team is going to lean on a group of second- and third-year players who “are going to step into highly offensive roles and important shutdown roles. We’ve been preparing for this in the last few years,” Bodie said. “It will be interesting to see how things shake out in terms of line combinations and roles, power play time.”
Just hours before Opening Night, we know more about what the roster will look like than we did a month ago, but the specific groupings will likely evolve in the early going. Here’s one potential look at how the team could line up:
The loss of McCormick is felt by the team because Coach Laxdal may like to have a veteran forward line he can rely upon in crunch time. With no other strong veteran candidate for the first-line left wing role, I moved Ben Meyers—who can play center or on the wing—up to the top line. Ideally, he’d bring his talent and savvy to the center position on the second line, and perhaps they start that way. But if Meyers does move into a wing role, at least in crucial situations, we could see rookie Andrei Loshko at center. Loshko—who played center and wing in his junior career—was utilized at center during Kraken training camp and in the Firebirds preseason game.
In this construction, the second line would trade on skill, while the third line would represent an intriguing blend of speed, grit, and goal scoring. The fourth line is not your standard grinding unit, but it is comprised of three center-capable forwards with plenty of forechecking speed on the wings. It is possible McKinnon could sub in for Goyette on Opening Night. I’d expect that McKinnon plays at least 40 games.
On the blue line, Ty Nelson seems primed for heavy usage at 5-on-5 and on special teams—particularly with Cale Fleury in the NHL for at least the season’s first month. Ville Ottavainen is more NHL ready than Nelson—he was among the last reassignments from NHL camp—but it makes sense to separate him from the team’s other best stay-at-home blueliner, Olofsson.
Jugnauth could be a newcomer in the top-four defensemen group and add a power-play role, which would make him an important player from the jump.
What are Bodie’s expectations for this young squad? “I’d like to see our players adapting to pro hockey quickly. There’s going to be some learning curve, some mistakes made along the way. I understand that.”
“I want to see our players compete, work hard, not give up an inch. Competitive nature is a non-negotiable for the Firebirds. We work hard here. That’s not something we take lightly.”
Notes on four more Kraken players
Ryan Winterton | F | Seattle Kraken (NHL)
Winterton is a player fans may have reasonably expected to slot into the top six of the Firebirds lineup discussed above. Instead, he skated with the NHL team in Seattle’s season opener, logging 12:02 time on ice, including one penalty-kill shift. Jason Botterill told Winterton he would be up with Kraken for “the foreseeable future,” so we should expect the young forward to remain on the NHL roster at least through Kaapo Kakko’s return, if not longer.
Nathan Villeneuve | F | Sudbury Wolves (OHL)
When Nathan Villeneuve left Kraken camp with an injury, the team said only that Villeneuve would miss the remainder of camp. Left to speculate about worst-case scenarios, it was a pleasant update to hear that Villeneuve will be back on the ice for his OHL team, the Sudbury Wolves, as of Friday. He will also be the Wolves’ captain for the 2025-26 season. I’m curious to see if this causes him to change his play-on-the-edge style that has led to heavy penalty minutes and a fighting-related suspension in the past.
Visa Vedenpää | G | HPK (Liiga)
Visa Vedenpää earned his first Liiga win on Saturday, Oct. 4, stopping 32 of 33 shots in a game against Kiekko-Espoo. Recognizing the moment, the team feted the young goaltender postgame. Some highlights and Vedenpää’s locker room speech were captured by the team-issued video below.
Karl Annborn | D | Västerås IK (HockeyAllsvenskan)
On Thursday, Oct. 9, HV71 loaned defenseman Karl Annborn to Västerås IK of HockeyAllsvenskan. It is likely that the team and player determined Annborn was too advanced for the Swedish U20 league, yet he could not establish himself as a regular in Sweden’s top pro league, the SHL, either. HockeyAllsvenskan is the second-level pro league in Sweden, which may be a good developmental home for Annborn at this stage. (We’ll update the schedule below to include Västerås IK‘s games by next week.)
Kraken prospects data update
Fresh off signing an entry-level contract with the Kraken, Julius Miettinen scored four goals and added three assists in three WHL games over the last week. This earns him his second-consecutive Sound Of Hockey Player of the Week.
Jake O’Brien left Brantford’s last game during overtime, but the team quickly reported that O’Brien was dealing with cramping and should not miss any additional time. O’Brien has one goal and four assists in his four OHL contests so far and should be out there for the Bulldogs tonight in their matchup with Villeneuve’s Sudbury Wolves.
Semyon Vyazovoi earned a KHL start for the second week in a row, which is good to see. Given his track record, I suspect the results will start trending in the right direction soon.
Kim Saarinen continues to perform amongst the best Liiga goalies as HPK’s clear starter.
Sound Of Hockey Prospect of the Week tracker
2: Kim Saarinen, Julius Miettinen
1: None
Seattle’s Finnish prospects are now four-for-four, giving the small hockey-playing nation a commanding early season lead in its quest to bring home one of the sport’s most prestigious awards.
Previewing the week ahead
We have two Deep Sea Hockey Games of the Week this week. Villeneuve’s return to the OHL lineup will come at 4:00 pm PT on Friday, against O’Brien’s Brantford Bulldogs. Should be a fun matchup of two of Seattle’s very best prospects. After that, at 7:00 pm PT, the puck drops on Coachella Valley’s AHL season. Great off-day content for a Kraken fan. Both games are on FloHockey.
Tracking 2026 NHL Draft prospects: Keaton Verhoeff
Defenseman Keaton Verhoeff is widely regarded as one of the top prospects in the 2026 NHL Draft not named Gavin McKenna. Verhoeff played his 2024-25 season with the Victoria Royals of the WHL, scoring 21 goals—by far the most among 16-year-old WHL defensemen—and adding 24 assists in 63 games. Verhoeff will play college hockey this year alongside Kraken prospect Ollie Josephson after both enrolled at the Univ. of North Dakota following the NCAA rule change that rendered CHL players eligible. Verhoeff’s draft season starts with a home game against the University of St. Thomas.
Recent prospect updates
October 3, 2025: Catton makes his case for the NHL Roster
September 26, 2025: Junior seasons begin, J.R. Avon settles in
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.