It's not often that a seventh-round pick in the NHL becomes a can't-miss prospect the following season.
When the Penguins selected Finnish winger Valtteri Puustinen in the seventh round in 2019, he was coming off of a decent first season with HPK in the top Finnish league. He put up 10 goals and three assists in 47 games in the regular season, and added another two goals and three assists in 16 games in HPK's run to becoming Liiga champions.
When the 2019-20 season began, it didn't take long for Puustinen to start turning heads with his hot start. He scored two goals and five assists in his first five games of the season, and worked his way up from HPK's third line to its top line.
Then, a month into the season, he did this:
A few weeks later when I spoke with Puustinen's former HPK teammate, Wilkes-Barre goaltender Emil Larmi, I asked Larmi for a scouting report on Puustinen and got a very Larmi-like, goofy response.
"He's a good player, he's like a young (Phil) Kessel. He looks like him," Larmi said. "He's a really good player. I don't know if you saw that one goal, between the legs? Yeah, it was okay. (laughs). He's a good guy. He can't really speak English."
Puustinen finished last season tied as HPK's leading goal scorer with 17 goals and finished No. 2 in points with 40 in 54 games. And with six goals and eight assists in 13 games to start this season, he's showing that his breakout season last year was no fluke.
It's only fitting that when I reached out recently to speak with Puustinen for the first time, he obliged, but with Larmi serving as his translator. And the first thing I wanted to know was what changed for Puustinen that led to that kind of breakout season he had last year.
"Nothing really changed," Puustinen said through Larmi. "I just kept doing and improving those right things. Development and results aren’t always linear. I also spent my summer in the army, maybe thats why. Just kidding."
He's referring to Finland's requirement that all capable men between the ages of 18 and 28 serve at least six months in the military.
Puustinen could be described as a late bloomer. He went undrafted in his first two years of eligibility, and was 20 years old when the Penguins selected him last summer. Patrik Allvin, the Penguins' director of scouting and current assistant general manager, pointed to Puustinen's play at the World Juniors that year (three assists in six games) and "strong finish" in the Liiga playoffs as some of the reasons they were excited to find Puustinen available in the seventh round.
One of the things that likely caused scouts to overlook Puustinen is his size. He's listed at 5-foot-9, 183 pounds.
"I don’t see that as a weakness," Puustinen said of his size. "Because of my size I’ve learned to play some situations differently and I think that has improved my game."
What Puustinen lacks in size, he makes up for with his craftiness, ability to read the game, and his speed. He describes himself as a "smart player and good skater. I love to control the puck and I’m good at that."
He said that his favorite player to watch currently is another crafty, strong-skating Finnish winger, Sebastian Aho, because "he’s good at everything."
With the Finnish league already being well ahead of the NHL and implementing player tracking technology, you can actually quantify Puustinen's speed in games. He's among HPK's fastest skaters with a top speed this season of 22.5 miles per hour.
That speed is evident in this clip of his third goal of the season in an October game against the Pelicans, when he flew up center ice to get in position for a one-timer:
That goal came in Puustinen's first game back after he was out of HPK's lineup for three weeks in quarantine due to being exposed to someone with coronavirus. He recorded points in six of his first seven games after returning to the lineup, including two goals in his first game back.
"Of course it was a bit hard after I’ve been three weeks off the ice, but still in the end it was just hockey and it wasn’t my first time playing hockey," he said.
Despite being out of the lineup for three weeks, Puustinen now ranks No. 2 on HPK in both goals (six) and points (14) in his 13 games this season, and is HPK's only player scoring at a rate above a point-per-game.
Puustinen said that he regularly hears from Penguins scouts and coaches with advice after they watch the video from his games. He said the biggest element of his game that he wants to focus on improving is his defense, to be a "better player all around."
The Penguins haven't yet signed Puustinen to his entry-level contract, and because he was drafted as a 20-year-old, the deadline to do so before they lose their exclusive signing rights to him is this summer. When I asked Puustinen if he thought he was ready to make that jump to North America for the 2021-22 season, his response was a confident "of course," and he said that he spoke a lot with Larmi about what to expect when he makes that move.
The last thing I made sure to ask about was Puustinen's "Kessel" nickname. Larmi called Puustinen "a young Kessel," last season, other players on the team call Puustinen Kessel, and HPK's play-by-play broadcasters even sometimes call him "Kessel" in their goal calls for him.
"It was my dad who started to call me 'the Kuopion Phil Kessel' (Kuopio is Puustinen's hometown) and then everyone else started to use that," he said. "I don’t know if it was before or after the Pens drafted me. I think it’s funny."
But why Kessel?
"Probably because I look like him."
