My look at the Rookie Faceoff covered three Finns headed out to San Jose. The Rookie Faceoff is just one of many prospect series that float around: the NHL Prospect Games, Sept. 12 to 15 at the BELFOR Training Center in Detroit, with the Red Wings hosting the Dallas Stars, Pittsburgh Penguins, and Columbus Blue Jackets. It has its own set of Finns to take a look at, when Dallas plays Detroit and Niilopekka Muhonen lines up across from Jesse Kiiskinen and Luka Arkko. All three sit further from the NHL than the Rookie Faceoff group I covered previously, but taking a look at each of them will be a good check points wanting to look into each teams Finnish prospect pool.
Niilopekka Muhonen, a Big Defenseman Who Can Move
Dallas took Muhonen 158th overall in 2024, a fifth-round swing on a 6-foot-5 defenseman who had the raw components, but needed shaping. He left Finnish Liiga Team, KalPa, for the Western Hockey League that fall and he stepped into a top junior league as an import and helped Medicine Hat win the Ed Chynoweth Cup and reach the Memorial Cup final in his first North American season. Dallas signed him to a three-year entry-level contract in July 2025, and he turns pro with the American Hockey League’s (AHL) Texas Stars this season.
On paper, Muhonen’s offense barely exists, and that’s fine, because it really isn’t the job. His stat tracking from last season reads like a shutdown defenseman’s: two hits a game, 58 percent of his puck battles won, a role on the penalty kill, and 84 percent passing to move pucks out of trouble, against almost nothing in the way of slot passes or scoring chances. He finished a plus-27 in 39 games on a Medicine Hat team that went 50-10-5-3, missing time on both sides of the new year with upper-body injuries.
The tools are the size and the skating, and the scouting splits on how far they carry him. At Dallas’s development camp in July, he looked strikingly agile for 6-foot-5, confident on his edges and comfortable carrying pucks out of pressure, and his sharpest moment was a forced turnover and a clean neutral-zone feed that sprung Dylan Hryckowian for the first goal of the mini-game. In some games, he shows that the hits and the stickwork are there but overcommits, gets beaten through on entries, and shows no projectable offense, which puts his likeliest outcome at a penalty-killing depth defenseman. Both reads point to the same thing at the Prospect Games. With his skating at his size is why I think he’s worth the wait, and the rush-defense timing is what stands between him and the NHL.
Jesse Kiiskinen, a Sniper Coming Across Full-Time
Kiiskinen went 68th overall to Nashville in 2023, a third-round price on a shooter several services had rated higher. A year later, Detroit traded for him, sending 2023 second-rounder Andrew Gibson to Nashville for Kiiskinen and a 2024 second-round pick. He made his name at the 2025 World Juniors, where he wore an “A” for Finland and, after a quiet first three games, poured in six goals across the last four to lead the team to silver. Then back in Liiga, he posted 44 points in 46 games for hometown HPK in 2024-25 to lead every junior-aged scorer in the league.
Last season his performance looked a bit more like a step back, with 28 points in 54 games, but the drop was almost entirely in assists as his goals climbed to 17. That fits what the tracking and the tape both say. He shoots constantly, more than five attempts a game by the box-score count, but a lot of them get blocked or come from the perimeter and the one-timer spots rather than the inner slot, and he rarely manufactures much for his linemates. On video review, he tracks as a high-pace energy winger more than a true offensive driver, held back by a lack of higher-end playmaking, with a third-line two-way winger as the honest projection.
He has a heavy, accurate release and a live one-timer, and away from the puck he forechecks with an agitator’s edge. The open question is the skating: it seems like speed and stride are going to be his long term sticking point. He got a three-game look with the Grand Rapids Griffins to close last season, recording a goal and an assist, before the Griffins left him off their playoff roster. He’s now in North America for good, likely to take on a top-six role on a younger Griffins group. If he continues to develop, that trade from Nashville will look like a steal.
Luka Arkko, the Raw Swing of the Three
Arkko is the youngest and newest name here, an 18-year-old Detroit took 175th overall in June, and he’s more complicated than the 6-foot-3, 212-pound frame suggests. He spent last season in Finnish junior, splitting time between the Pelicans’ under-20 and under-18 levels and recording 33 points; the Ontario Hockey League’s Erie Otters grabbed him in the import draft days later, so he’s headed to North American junior this season.
The closest thing I could call him is a power forward, but that does not quite fit him. He does his work at the net front, crashing for rebounds and screening, and he protects pucks well below the goal line, but he barely hits and plays more like a smart, connective winger than a bruiser. The reports are consistent, and they circle the same problem. When looking at him for the 2026 Draft, his off-puck sense, his net-front instincts, and flashes of skill stood out, but his skating form leaves a lot to be desired — a stiff, upright stride with poor separation between his upper and lower body that keeps him from using his size against better competition.
But do not be discourages by this sixth-round pick: he has some spark. In a preseason game last summer he went coast to coast, split the defense, and finished through back pressure, the kind of rep that shows why Detroit spent a pick. The Prospect Games are the first look at Arkko in a Detroit sweater against older, faster bodies, and the thing to watch is whether the feet can keep up with the hands. He’s a long-term project to follow patiently for Red Wing fans.
The three are at different stage and worth watching for different reasons. Muhonen has the highest ceiling and the longest runway as a big mobile defenseman who still needs pro reps and tighter rush defense. Kiiskinen is the closest to helping his NHL team, if the shot can outrun the skating in the AHL. Arkko is the flier, years from a NHL roster spot.
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