{"id":551417,"date":"2026-04-12T23:03:20","date_gmt":"2026-04-12T23:03:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/551417\/"},"modified":"2026-04-12T23:03:20","modified_gmt":"2026-04-12T23:03:20","slug":"krakens-kokko-emerges-as-legit-prospect-in-net","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/551417\/","title":{"rendered":"Kraken’s Kokko Emerges As Legit Prospect In Net"},"content":{"rendered":"

He started for the first time in the NHL during a difficult time of year for the Seattle Kraken, in a game of little significance on Saturday<\/a> against the non-playoff Calgary Flames. He made 26 saves and his team won 4-1.<\/p>\n

It may have been a sudden glimpse into the Kraken\u2019s future in net.<\/p>\n

He was Niklas Kokko<\/a> when Seattle drafted him in the 2nd round of the 2022 NHL Draft. He now goes by the shortened nickname of Kokke. The 22-year-old Finn was one of four players the Kraken selected in that round that summer.<\/p>\n

(Jagger Firkus<\/a> \u2013 35th-overall, Jani Nyman<\/a> \u2013 49th, Kokko \u2013 58th, David Goyette<\/a> \u2013 61st) (The underlined links are the prospect reports I did on the players back in the day)<\/p>\n

Kokko got a small taste of Finland\u2019s top pro league, SM liiga, as a teenager. He\u2019s consistently posted save percentages over .900 across the board. He\u2019s most recently split the chores for two full seasons with the Coachella Valley Firebirds of the American Hockey League, where he actually had better numbers last season than he did this one.<\/p>\n

The 6-foot-4, 190-pounder split time in the AHL mostly with Ales Stezka in 2023-\u201925 and with Victor Osman this past season. Stezka has since returned to his home country of Czechia to play, while Osman actually backed-up Kokko on Saturday evening.<\/p>\n

It was a chance for the Kraken to get a look at their top two professional goalie prospects with Joey Daccord and Philipp Grubauer dinged up. Plus, why not? It\u2019s the end of a season that\u2019s not going beyond April 16th.<\/p>\n

Kokko, who uses his size to stay upright a bit longer than most goaltenders, saw NHL action on one other occasion. Last season on February 25th<\/a> he came in to mop up in a 7-2 loss to the St. Louis Blues that Daccord started. No reason to read too much into the fact that Kokko gave up two goals on six shots in relief.<\/p>\n

Giving \u201cyoungsters\u201d a look at this time of year is always a solid idea, particularly for non-playoff teams. Recent events have allowed the club to add that opportunity between the pipes. It\u2019s a bonus, plus we might be seeing the future of the Kraken in net.<\/p>\n

Daccord could always use help and Grubauer is entering the final year of his contract at age 34.<\/p>\n

Earlier Kraken:<\/p>\n

\u2014 Will Kraken Make Lambert Latest \u2018One-and-Done\u2019?<\/a><\/p>\n

Earlier Canucks:<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Canucks PR BS; Don\u2019t Blame Ullrich<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"He started for the first time in the NHL during a difficult time of year for the Seattle…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":551418,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5130],"tags":[5,4188,4,2686,234,5318],"class_list":{"0":"post-551417","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-seattle-kraken","8":"tag-hockey","9":"tag-kraken","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-seattle","12":"tag-seattle-kraken","13":"tag-seattlekraken"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116394236558922788","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551417","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=551417"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551417\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/551418"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=551417"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=551417"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=551417"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}