Seattle Kraken Power Forward
The Seattle Kraken signed Jani Nyman to his three-year entry-level contract on Monday, June 12th, 2023. It’s a two-way deal, meaning he’ll post a salary cap hit of $950,000 if he’s playing at the NHL level, with a salary of about $82,000 when playing in the American Hockey League. We can pretty much guarantee you it will be the latter for next season.
This is an update of the first version of a “future” article about Nyman that we posted in late November, 2022.
Former Seattle Kraken defenseman Jeremy Lauzon became Jani Nyman by virtue of the latter being the 2022 2nd-round draft pick acquired by Kraken General Manager Ron Francis in exchange for Lauzon at the 2022 trade deadline.
Nyman, the 18-year-old, left-shot winger, remained in his native Finland for the 2022-’23 season where he played for Tampere in the top professional SM Liiga. He finished with ten goals and four assists in 29 games played.
Numbers don’t jump out? Remember, he was a teenager playing with men in what is probably the most physical of the European professional leagues. Each team plays a 60-game schedule so he wasn’t always in the line-up for a club that finished 2nd in the league standings, two points behind rival Tappara. He doesn’t turn 19 until July 30th.
Nyman essentially grew up in that hockey hotbed of Tampere where he also played juniors. It hosted the 2023 World Championships that Canada won last month. His actual hometown Valkeakoski is just 20 miles down the road.
Nyman is considered a power forward with decent hands, standing 6-foot-3 and checking in at about 215 pounds.
Highlights
The 49th-overall pick of the Seattle Kraken last summer when he was still just 17, Nyman led his KooVee Tampere team in scoring during the 2021-’22 season with 35 points in 34 games. KooVee plays in Mestis, the 2nd-tier professional league in Finland. He also performed in ten games in the SM Liiga along the way that season before being promoted permanently for 2022-’23.
Having turned 18 just a week after the NHL draft and a couple of weeks before the long delayed 2022 World Junior tournament, Nyman wasn’t a factor for the Finnish roster last summer. He did play in the 2023 version of the tournament where his Finland team got bounced by rival Sweden in the cross-over quarterfinals. He tallied three points over five games.
Pros and Cons
Nyman is a big boy who uses his size and strength effectively. He controls pucks and loves firing them. Fellow Finn Hadi Kalakeche did a write up for Dobber’s Hockey:
A massive and strong winger, Nyman loves to shoot the puck — to a fault. He regularly takes six or more shots a game and usually shoots it on net whenever he has a look. He protects the puck very well, works the boards decently using his 6-foot-3 frame and massive reach to keep opponents to the outside as he shimmies the puck to his teammates.
The writer also suggested that even though Nyman has a heavy shot, it’s somewhat easily detectable.
Also, not unexpected for a teenager of this size who’s still growing into his body and his feet, Nyman isn’t the best skater and still needs to work on his first step in the O-zone.
Despite the current drawbacks, scouts believe Nyman’s upside involves a slot as a middle-six NHL winger. The Seattle Kraken obviously have a pretty good idea of his potential as they’ve inked him to his first NHL deal.
