Finnish Prospects in the NHL

by Hawerchuk on Nov 14, 2009 8:33 PM EST Comment 4 comments

About Teemu Hartikainen, Scott Reynolds asks:

"how many 19-year-olds put up between 0.45 and 0.75 points per game in the SM-Liiga and never make it to the NHL? I don’t know the answer but I think it would be good to know before you convince the guy to buy a house in Edmonton."

Between 1980 and 2004, 22 players have met this criteria (adjusting to last year's offensive levels - 2.61 G/G, 1.66 A/G.) Here's the list, showing their NHL scoring through age 25:

	Season	FNL PPG	NHL GP	NHL G	NHL A	NHL PTS
Reijo Ruotsalainen	1980	0.61	389	99	217	316
Joni Pitkanen	2003	0.62	340	40	135	175
Mikko Koivu	2003	0.57	282	57	127	184
Jere Lehtinen	1993	0.51	266	65	100	165
Sami Kapanen	1993	0.50	242	68	88	156
Niko Kapanen	1998	0.51	158	6	35	41
Hannu Jarvenpaa	1983	0.47	114	11	26	37
Ville Peltonen	1993	0.70	73	9	19	28
Tony Salmelainen	2001	0.51	70	6	12	18
Juha Lind	1994	0.48	39	2	3	5
Janne Kekalainen	1990	0.50	27	4	3	7
Vesa Viitakoski	1991	0.73	23	2	4	6
Tuomas Pihlman	2003	0.66	15	1	1	2
Jarkko Varvio	1992	0.61	13	3	4	7
Marko Jantunen	1991	0.57	3	0	0	0
Tony Arima	1981	0.57	0	0	0	0
Timo Saarikoski	1989	0.52	0	0	0	0
Keijo Sailynoja	1990	0.49	0	0	0	0
Tommi Pullola	1991	0.60	0	0	0	0
Mikko Luovi	1993	0.45	0	0	0	0
Kimmo Rintanen	1993	0.66	0	0	0	0
Janne Laakkonen	2002	0.57	0	0	0	0

Average		0.56	93	17	35	52

Niko Kapanen and Ville Peltonen were late-bloomers and did more in their late 20s. That gives Hartikainen a 33% chance of having a reasonable NHL career and a 25% chance of playing regularly during his entry-level contract. But don't expect anything anytime soon - only Pitkanen and Ruotsalainen played regularly in the NHL before they were 22.

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Comments

Thanks Gabe. That’s actually a bit better chance for him than I was expecting.

by Scott Reynolds on Nov 14, 2009 9:02 PM EST reply actions

well, it’s probably lower than I estimated here – those are some high-scoring finnish defensemen in this group. the forwards were less successful…

by Hawerchuk on Nov 14, 2009 11:04 PM EST up reply actions

I see. The only two defenders I recognized were Pitkanen and Reijo and I assumed some of the guys that missed were defenders so that it would balance out. Guess not. Well, back to considering him a longshot then.

by Scott Reynolds on Nov 15, 2009 10:51 AM EST up reply actions