At the same time as high-profile Finnish star players are shining, under the bright surface many are fighting tooth and nail for their place in the NHL sun. On the one hand, there is nothing new here, but now there are several exceptionally interesting names at the edge of the abyss at the same time.
Who would have thought that Rasmus Ristolainen, Jesse Puljujärvi, Kasperi Kapanen and Eeli Tolvanen are in this situation already in autumn 2022? After all, everyone’s name has been announced in the first round of the NHL draft.
Even though the hype around young people of reservation age has grown enormously in recent years, the old truth has not changed: reservation itself does not guarantee anything. Finns have also been booked in the first round a lot in recent years, but many are still looking for themselves and their breakthrough after years.
Kapanen is playing himself out of Pittsburgh
Kasperi Kapanen’s situation in Pittsburgh is difficult. It was already last season, when the Finn, who had clearly lost his joy in the game, was unable to utilize his strengths, i.e. good skating and moderate shooting. Instead, the player was content to drift outside the game and occasionally also outside the lineup. According to his own words, Kapanen even got into arguments with the coach.
And not the head coach known for his high standards Mike Sullivan got off Kapa with ease. The ice age was often short.
However, for one reason or another, the club decided to offer Kapanen a new two-year, 6.4 million dollar contract in the summer.
At the beginning of this season, Kapanen scored five (1+4) power points in five matches, after which things quickly went off the rails. After a good start, Kapanen lost his game and played seven matches without power with a power rating of -7.
This was enough for Sullivan, and Kapanen sat on the sidelines of Thursday morning’s game in Washington.
After all, it is no longer about a single stand command or a weak episode of a couple of weeks. It’s about the fact that the player who just received a contract of more than six million has scored three goals for Pittsburgh in the previous 50 matches.
The reading is terribly weak when you think about the level of Kapanen’s toolkit.
Now local media has requested (you switch to another service) club to give up their Finnish player. The situation is worrying from Kapanen’s point of view, because presenting a counter-argument is not easy right now. The forward started the second season in Pittsburgh moderately, but since then, the Kuopio native’s time at the club has become a mess.
It’s hard to see a happy ending for Kapanen’s time in Pittsburgh after all – being on the transfer list is a reality.
After that, it’s up to the lord: either another club still wants to look at the Kapas card and grab him from the transfer list, or the road leads to the farm.
The only thing that is certain is that Kapanen is not a player worth his salary, he hasn’t been for ages. The NHL community is also small, where everyone knows everything about their environment. That’s why, at the age of 26, Kapanen is already playing for the continuation of his NHL career every single night.
Puljujärvi’s last chance
Six years ago, Jesse Puljujärvi, who was booked as the fourth in the booking event, has made himself an NHL player, but is it possible to break into a profit unit player?
Like Kapanen, it has been dry: 50 previous matches and five goals. Performance is poor.
At the same time, the responsibility of the fly breeder has decreased. With ten minutes of ice time without superior responsibility, it is difficult to make a result. The atmosphere around the Finn seems inflamed and a player trade will probably be coming if only a buyer can be found.
Star striker Evander Kane a long sick leave (3–4 months) is probably Puljujärvi’s last chance to break through in Alberta. The responsibility will increase and there will probably be a time of superiority. Now you should start hitting the puck in the backpack.
Read also: Patrick Maroon’s skate cut Evander Kane’s wrist in the NHL – the player rushed from the ice to the locker room and was rushed to the hospital
On the other hand, Puljujärvi has not even received a superstar this season Connor McDavid’s side by side to complete the result.
The 24-year-old Finnish winger’s performance is 1+1, and McDavid was not on the ice during either of the markings. The three previous matches alongside the star center have been unremarkable both on an individual and chain level.
Puljujärvi is also playing with great stakes this season if we think about the continuation of this NHL career. The Finn’s strengths, weaknesses and story in general are widely known in the NHL. There will hardly be a queue of takers if the profit situation does not improve soon.
Ristolai’s identity crisis
In Philadelphia, Rasmus Ristolainen, 28, has had a difficult start to the new season. Buffalo’s long-time number one pick and summer 2013 first-round pick has even been out of the lineup in the Flyers.
In the summer, somewhat surprisingly, Philadelphia rewarded Ristolainen with an extension contract worth five years and 25 million dollars, although he has rarely played at the level required by the salary recently. When at the same time he was brought in as a puck defender Tony DeAngeloRistolainen’s outlook also changed.
DeAngelo and the Russian defender Ivan Provorov run a puck-based game, so Finns are mainly required to play basic games without a puck. The situation is new for Ristolainen, who played four 40-point seasons in Buffalo.
It would seem that there is some kind of identity crisis at hand regarding what kind of player Rasmus Ristolainen profiles as.
He has taken his playing in the direction of tough basic defense, but was often in big trouble with that.
It would seem as if tackling and bluffing had become the purpose itself. Philadelphia has become, in a word, crushed during the fall, even in the light of advanced statistics, while Ristolainen is on the ice. This cannot continue.
The fact that for the first time in the NHL, Ristolainen has practically no role in special situations shows something about the lack of trust on the part of the coaching staff. This reduces the ice time significantly and also breaks the rhythm of the game.
Ristolainen’s stock in the NHL has plummeted in a worrying way over the past couple of years. Ristolainen is the defenseman who collected the second most minuses (-174) in the NHL in the previous 40 years, and this narrative seems to have started to live its own life in a dangerous way, affecting even the defenseman’s playing – there is often too much effort.
You should play well in front of five million liksas. On the other hand, trading a TPS breeder is difficult because of the thick salary bag.
Ristolainen is also playing with really big stakes this season when thinking about the future. The head coach John Tortorella gives no mercy.
Tolvanen’s gunpowder gets wet
Loved by Jokers Eeli Tolvanen was booked as the penultimate player in the first round of the summer 2017 booking event.
Nashville saw a goal scorer in Tolvase and why wouldn’t they have seen, after all, the net had been swinging a lot in the KHL. Vihtäläinen is not profiled as a goalscorer, however: he has 131 NHL games and 25 hits behind him.
Tolvanen has also developed his overall playing, but the NHL dream is built through the profit unit. Few Finns make a long career in the bottom chains of the NHL, and Tolvanen is not Joel Armian flat planer.
The club planned for Tolva to finally make a final breakthrough to the top chains, but he has scored only two goals in nine matches this fall. Besides that, Nashville has been in big trouble with Tolvanen’s substitutions.
For example, during Tolvanen’s tenure, the Predators have lost 69 percent of dangerous goal posts. The expected goal ratio is in the same category. The readings are practically the weakest of the team.
Tolvanen sometimes sat in the stands for four matches, which is an exceptionally strong message from the coaching staff: trust really starts with cracks.
In the return match on Friday morning, despite the scored goal, there was only a good nine minutes of ice time available.
Tolvanen’s contract of 1.45 million talas lasts until the summer of 2024. If the road goes up in a country village, what screens should be used to find a new decent job.