Thursday was a particularly fun and rewarding day for Kraken goalie prospect Visa Vedenpaa. The 2023 sixth-round draft pick’s season in his native Finland was upended in October by a long-term stay on the injured list. He returned to play three games for his Hermes Kokkola in his country’s second-tier professional league, posting a 1-1 record in two starts. He has been working hard to be ready for the 2025-26 season back home.
In Thursday’s third annual Stucky Cup scrimmage (honoring assistant equipment manager and long-time Seattle hockey personality James Stucky) that serves as the finale of Kraken Development Camp, Vedenpaa was afforded the full 40 minutes of four-on-four scrimmage action, making 28 saves in the Blue Team’s 4-3 comeback victory over a White squad that came out shooting and never really stopped. Unofficially, Vedenpaa made at least 10 Grade-A saves with four quality stops on 2024 first-rounder Berkly Catton, who did beat Vedenpaa once with a mid-first-period score to give the White Team a 1-0 lead.
“I felt good out there,” said the 6-foot-2, 180-pound Vedenpaa, who shares the hometown of Oulu with fellow Finn and Kraken goalie prospect Nikke Kokko. “I just wanted to enjoy the game and the fans. I felt great today. The team helped me get the win [by scoring three straight second period to rally from a 3-1 deficit].”
Vedenpaa did his part, making eight straight saves to keep the game scoreless in the first seven minutes, then 14 saves overall in the first period to keep it 1-1 at intermission, and then again notching big stops once he and the Blue squad were still down 3-1. The Finn will fly back to Europe Friday to continue preparing for the upcoming season, with team training and the Liiga regular season starting about a month ahead of North American leagues. When asked who helped him make it through months of not being on the ice and/or donning goalie gear, the just-turned 20-year-old credited his parents and family, teammates, good friends and Kraken goalie scout Andrew Allen, “who called me every week.”
Tambellini: ‘Probably Our Best Development Camp'
Kraken Director of Player Development Jeff Tambellini was beaming when he met with the media midday on Thursday. He noted that the Kraken system now has 43 prospects in varying stages of progression toward potential NHL debuts, an impressive figure given that there was no development camp in 2021 because the franchise had just selected its first seven draft choices. This week, 12 forwards, 14 defensemen (two of whom were injured and served as honorary coaches in the scrimmage), and four goaltenders were on hand. At the same time, many of the other Seattle prospects had completed a full season with American Hockey League affiliate Coachella Valley.
“I thought this was probably our best [development camp] on ice in terms of actually getting accomplished some of the foundational things we wanted, and then away from the rink, just trying to make sure the players enjoy what Seattle has to offer,” said Tambellini. “We went to see the Seahawks [training center] yesterday. All of our guys were out on the field learning how to throw a football. Some well, some not so well.”
Those Errant football passes were about the only occurrence that Tambellini and the player development group, along with Coachella Valley coaches and Seattle hockey operations personnel, didn’t regard as positive this week. In his media session, Tambellini mentioned 2025 second-round defenseman Blake Fiddler (the Kraken traded up two spots to pick him) as one of many scrimmage standouts (“his size, we’re really excited about that”) along with camp invitee and Western Hockey League Regina Pats defenseman Reese Hamilton, who was undrafted despite early-year projections he might be picked in early rounds of the recent NHL Draft. Hamilton scored the White Team’s third goal, finishing a pretty feed from the aforementioned Catton.
There were other standouts: 2022 third-rounder Ben MacDonald (another player the Kraken traded up for) notched a goal and an assist, while Swedish-born 2025 seventh-rounder Karl Annborn scored an unassisted game-winner in the final minutes to complete the Blue squad comeback. It should be noted that more seasoned prospects, such as 2023 third-rounder Andrei Loshko and 2024 second-rounder Nathan Villeneuve, turned on the jets for the Blue team in the final 10 minutes of the scrimmage with strong shifts that pressured the White squad in their own end and subsequently led to pivotal goals.
Building a Kraken Foundation, Drill by Drill
Tambellini said the week’s drills were integral to the “dev camp” plan, adding a comment that 2025 first-round pick (No. 8 overall) Jake O’Brien caught everyone’s attention during a puck-protection set of moves.
“It's a short amount of days and we don't get these young guys a lot, but when we do get this group, we're trying to instill multiple things,” said Tambellini. “One, we're trying to build a foundation for these prospects: Talk about what we do in Seattle, how we do it from a development standpoint. We looked to give every session a purpose. Our defenders worked with Cory Murphy, our head defense coach [among player development consultants], and the forwards worked with Justin Rai. Then our goaltenders had all three of our goalie coaches and Philipp Grubauer [back in town for summer training]. We wanted to make the most of each ice session.”
The aforementioned O’Brien’s Thursday was pretty solid, too. Before the second period started – after GM Jason Botterill praised the packed house at Kraken Community Iceplex for coming out to support the prospects and organization on a July day—O’Brien officially signed his first pro contract, a three-year, entry-level deal ($975,000 average annual value).
