Koskela is a left-handed defender who shows a nice blend of stay-at-home tendencies along with an aggressive join-the-rush style. Skating backwards, he has a wider stance that helps him generate a lot of power with his crossovers. This stance also allows him to adjust his speed going backwards to maintain good gap control for players attacking him, staying square to the shooter by keeping his eyes up at their chest and not the puck. There is a disciplined way to how he defends the rush, in that he waits for the attacker to make the first move. Makes smart defensive reads to cut off passing lanes to intercept the puck and regain possession. He does, however, show a need to improve his transition from backward to forward skating, as it mechanically is not efficient and causes him to get beat wide sometimes. Offensively, Koskela shows a willingness to jump up into the high slot when appropriate, though he struggles to get enough velocity on his shots from the point to make them dangerous. He has the natural skating ability to lead the rush, he just needs to take those opportunities more often when presented to him. While breaking the puck out of his own zone he displays strong poise with the puck on his stick, taking time to survey the ice for the best play, and is more often than not able to find teammates with efficient and crisp tape-to-tape passes. Has the ability to play on his off-side as needed, with little to no impact to how he performs, showing his versatility. His stride is short and quick rather than long and smooth, causing his overall transfer of power through his stride to be somewhat inefficient and hinder his top speed. Tries to knock opponents off the puck but has trouble doing so. As Koskela matures physically it will be interesting to see how his natural skill set could make him more impactful. Demonstrates good defensive and transitional smarts, with some room for improvement in offensive creativity and physical maturity.

– FCHockey’s 2021 NHL Draft Guide