As the hockey world rolls into a new season and players arrive in their respective cities, the buzz centred around training camp and potential lineup construction goes into overdrive.
Like clockwork, one of the biggest lineup questions almost always involves top prospects and their chances of making their respective NHL rosters.
For the Vancouver Canucks, one of the more intriguing roster decisions revolves around top-prospect wing Jonathan Lekkerimäki.
Lekkerimäki, who had a resurgent draft-plus-two year with Örebro HK of the Swedish Hockey League, scored 31 points across 46 games, leading a rather anaemic offensive team. Combine that with an impactful World Junior Championships and a short, six-game stint with the Abbotsford Canucks, the Swedish product is all but primed for his first full season in North America.
Nevertheless, translatability to the NHL game is not only an incredible hurdle to overcome; it’s a rite of passage that every NHLer experiences. With different expectations and measures of success for each coach and organization, it can become even more complicated to measure where a prospect stands.
Luckily, Canucks’ Head Coach Rick Tocchet is clear about identity and how he expects rostered players to operate.
Overarching Identity of Rostered Canucks Players
In a July video released by the team, Tocchet, who was running a pre-season coaching summit with other members of the coaching staff, outlined eight different staples that they expect from a player. The terms included Changes, Connected, Attitude, Hunt Mentality, Selfless, Tracking, Scan the Ice and Chipping the Body.
Via The Nation Network
If you watched any Canucks hockey last season, none of these staples are shocking based on how the team played. Tocchet demanded endless aggression and physicality, focused on crushing puck retrievers and generating second-chance offence. Executing through the established system and playing connected hockey through a deliberate structure was also paramount to the team’s success. When players lost their composure and took poor penalties, they often were scratched shortly after, especially if they weren’t established NHL players.
What was overly clear was the defensive demands that he required. This is why scanning and tracking are two points outlined here — they make up the basis of proper coverage and play reading. Deficient players like ex-Canuck Andrei Kuzmenko were quickly marginalized and eventually moved out in favour of more responsible entities. Even younger players like Nils Höglander spent dedicated time with the Sedin twins improving his game.
Knowing these staples allows us to look at Lekkerimäki’s game through Tocchet’s lens.
Does Lekkerimäki align with Rick Tocchet’s staples?
Watching Lekkerimäki’s tape across his end-of-the-season SHL and AHL games, it’s clear that the 20-year-old prospect is a dogged puck hunter. A trait that wasn’t present across much of his draft-minus-one tape, Lekkerimäki has been a fairly proficient pressure pusher going back to last year’s World Junior Championships.
While he’s not necessarily a burner, the former 15th-overall pick is agile, can change directions on a dime, and processes ahead of the play. This led to consistent pick-offs, supporting puck battle wins, and more sustained pressure across his minutes. If anything, Lekkerimäki’s size was the biggest hurdle on the perimeter of the ice. Some of his battles against bigger, more physical AHL defenders were essentially David versus Goliath-like efforts. It’s a case of possessing the positive habit before having the physical capability to execute consistently.
Considering the NHL is only a bigger, faster environment, Lekkerimäki, in his current form, may struggle to hunt pucks effectively. He has to become stronger — that is a given, but at the very least, there is a basis for growth here.
Defensively, the story is similar for Lekkerimäki. All last season, he has found opportunities to create defensive stops on the backcheck across each league and tournament. He rapidly ups his pace, attempts to drive attackers to the outside, and shifts to support the middle of the ice, disrupting shot releases and pick-pocketing pucks from unsuspecting slot activators.
While all this play-stopping represents obvious positive points of his game, Lekkerimäki struggled to impact play across longer defensive zone sequences that required more advanced processing. In particular, his biggest issue involved tracking his checks through their rotations, often missing off-puck activations and pushing into unnecessary pressure. He scans regularly, but it doesn’t appear he uses that information to its fullest to truly map attackers’ positions mentally. Again, good habits, just not enough execution.
If Tocchet sees puck hunting and defensive play as non-negotiables, Lekkerimäki has at least some legs to stand on here. Regardless, he’s 20 years old, and the abovementioned cons are common among his cohorts.
Offensive Dimension
Ultimately, if Lekkerimäki is going to make the Canucks roster, it will be through his ability to generate offence.
Via The Nation Network
Getting his first taste of professional hockey in North America, Lekkerimäki had mixed results.
Known for his ridiculous, near-unreadable release, Lekkerimäki only had a few opportunities to use his elite tool in dangerous areas of the ice. Much of his play was too outside-oriented, operating on the perimeter of the ice. His ability to find open ice and operate cleanly through passing lanes was a much more challenging experience than his SHL play.
Often, Lekkerimäki ran into intense resistance in the slot, a level of disruption that he likely hadn’t experienced in his career. He still found opportunities to get open, but the frequency was much lower than what he saw in Sweden.
At the very least, these games represent more of a learning experience and measuring stick rolling into this upcoming season. Regardless, Lekkerimäki has to operate more in the middle of the ice, moving pucks from the board to the slot to leverage his shooting. Here are some examples from the SHL that he will have to translate.
With so much of the NHL’s offence generated off the rush, it’s imperative to enter the offensive zone with control and beat gapped-up defenders. Unfortunately, this was an area that Lekkerimäki struggled with across his AHL games.
Driven wide on most of his entries, Lekkerimäki has a few poor habits that limit his ability to carry the puck effectively through pressure. First, he stops moving his feet, slowing the overall attack and allowing defenders to push up aggressively. This is a large-ice habit where he has the time and space to make a play into the middle.
A byproduct of operating on your inside edges is that you become a straight-line attacker. If you aren’t forcing defenders laterally, you will be in trouble in the NHL, and a big part of that is operating with speed through your outside edges and handling.
He has flashed the ability to do this in the SHL, but it often comes off a pass with a supporter pushing defenders back. It will be crucial that he adjusts this upcoming season.
Luckily, Lekkerimäki’s playmaking north-to-south is pretty robust. Even off the perimeter, he uses stop-ups and cuts to open passing lanes, can connect across layers, and constantly slips the puck through defensive triangles to connect with teammates.
The final element is his shooting — which is elite in almost every way. Lekkerimäki often operates in the left-hand circle, where he utilizes his one-timer as more a howitzer than a simple one-touch shot. Combine that with a deceptive, angle-changing release and constant downhill attacks; it’s clear that if a team has Lekkerimäki rostered, his best usage is on the man advantage.
Verdict and Why role and roster Composition Present real roadblocks
Obviously, an off-season of training drastically changes things for any young player. Much of the above points could be moot. That being said, if we look at the body of work, it will be difficult for the top prospect to make the NHL roster if we consider his game as a whole. While the building blocks are all present, his defensive game will be the biggest limiter, particularly when under pressure.
On top of that, his offensive game likely isn’t at a place where he could be a persistent threat in the top six. This is where role becomes an issue. It doesn’t make sense for Lekkerimäki to play anywhere but on Elias Pettersson or J.T. Millers’ wing. Will he beat out established entities like newly signed Daniel Sprong, a four-year pro, Höglander, or even an established Danton Heinen? It’s not likely. When you start conceptualizing special teams, arguably his strongest area of play, he won’t supersede Miller off the half wall either. Twenty seconds of a second-unit powerplay isn’t helpful for development.
The organization smartly is not shutting the door on the possibility but won’t be rushing the prospect; in an article for hockeysverige.se, translated by Canucks Army, General Manager Patrik Allvin explained the organization’s philosophy on Lekkerimäki,
“It will be interesting to see him at camp when everything kicks off. After that, it’s up to him where he will end up, but we are very happy to have Jonathan here and to continue working with him. He is a very talented player. We need to respect his age and experience as well, so there’s no rush—when he is physically and mentally ready, Jonathan will show where he wants to be.”
An outcome where Lekkerimäki is a top offensive option on a Manny Malhotra-coached Abbotsford Canucks team is likely the best outcome here. It’s an environment where he can learn the smaller ice surface, develop physically, and tune his offensive game to better translate for the NHL.
Ideally, Lekkerimäki represents a player who can provide scoring off the wing in the future, likely in the place of a player who has priced themselves out of the organization. With so much depth signed on the wing, the chances weren’t high, to begin with, for this season, but at the end of the day, nothing is out of the realm of possibilities — just don’t be shocked if the Canucks take a more measured approach with their top offensive prospect.
