Kraken Fins Kakko, Tolvanen Vye For Olympic Medal

Tolvanen has just one goal in the tournament thus far but has also looked solid in his to-way game on a team where forwards such as Mikko Rantanen, Sebastian Aho, Artturi Lehkonen and Mikael Granlund are there to carry the scoring load. Unlike Kakko’s prior injury struggles, Tolvanen’s season has arguably been the best of his career given he’s trending toward a personal best in points and is already playing more minutes than ever at 16:21 per game in even-strength, power play and penalty killing roles

“What you’re realizing right now with someone like Tolvy is just the versatility that a player like that has,” Botterill said. “And when you get into these tournaments with top players and players that can play with anybody, well, hey, that’s what he’s done with us.

“Our organization has sort of bounced him around in different roles, but he’s always been effective. And I think that’s such an attribute to help out a national team.”

And Botterill said it’s no coincidence to see Kakko and Tolvanen performing well on a huge world stage.

“What we’ve tried to bring in to the Kraken are players who’ve had past success,” Botterill said. “Whether it’s a free agent signing and (Chandler) Stephenson and (Brandon) Montour winning Stanley Cups or even just the different players we’ve tried to bring in since day one who’ve had success at big tournaments.

“And when you look at Kakko and Tolvy, I know both players are very proud of their Finnish heritage and they’ve always had success when they’ve put on that Finnish jersey.”

Tolvanen played for Finland at the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Games at age 18 in which he registered nine points in five matchups and made the tournament all-star team. But that wasn’t a best-on-best tournament like now. He’d previously played for Finland last spring at the IIHF World Hockey Championship, scoring seven goals and adding two assists. And he was part of three World Juniors teams in 2017, 2018 and 2019, winning gold in the last of those tournaments.

Kakko also won World Juniors gold on the 2019 Finnish squad, scoring the championship game overtime clincher among his two goals and three assists in that tournament. A few months later, he competed at the IIHF World Championship in a starring role, scoring six goals and adding an assist over 10 games as Finland again won gold.

Kakko and Finland also won gold at the 2018 World U18 tourney, making the Kraken first-liner the youngest player in ice hockey history to win gold at the IIHF U18, World Juniors and IIHF Men’s Worlds. Now he has the chance to add Olympic gold to his achievements.

And a chance to really jumpstart a 2025-26 season that showed signs of taking off before this break. The Kraken have always felt the potential for something special in Kakko, a former No. 2 overall draft pick by the Rangers in 2019 who showed signs of breaking out last year following a mid-season trade.

After all, for all his tribulations in New York, he only turned 25 last week.