LD Aron Kiviharju - TPS, FIN JRS (2024 Draft)

[ijuka]

His Birthdate is January 25. 2006 - Age 11. Height: 5'1", Weight: 105 lbs

He played in the D2(u13) AAA(highest level) league this season as his team's alternative captain. His team won the title.

Also, while he didn't win the scoring title(Several players played on two teams and had nearly twice the matches played as a result), he had the highest PPG in the entire league, as a double underager defenseman.

Scoring:

D2 AAA Q: 19+28=47 in 14 games played

D2 AAA: 8+28=36 in 9 games played

D2 AAA Finals: 1+2=3 in 1 game played



In my opinion, if a 11-year-old defenseman can possibly be generational, this is it. He's going to be the next Erik Karlsson.

I haven't really seen 11-year-old hockey all that much, but this to me is far more impressive than Iguchi for instance, who is the only 11-year-old phenomenon that really came to mind. Laine for instance hadn't even switched to playing F full time at this age. It's unbelievable how good all of his attributes are for his age, and double underaging at that age isn't exactly common even for superb talents(A far more common route is to single underage until like 14 or 15). And leading the league in PPG by a large margin as a defenseman is absurd. While it's a u13 league, it still is the strongest such league in Finland.



EDIT:

Shift-by-shift / extended highlights of a single match, 9 minutes: https://streamable.com/a5ajg


I also have a couple of clips of the 2016-2017 season here. For identification, LHD Defenseman with #11 and the A(But it should be obvious who he is):

https://streamable.com/k3jof
https://streamable.com/uv6cc
https://streamable.com/08hfa
https://streamable.com/zb1o1
https://streamable.com/x9grl
https://streamable.com/ujjog
https://streamable.com/ry4rs
https://streamable.com/qa14a
https://streamable.com/lxesa
https://streamable.com/s6xnc
https://streamable.com/8ajft
https://streamable.com/lydu6

Click to read more...

 

[Loffer]

Hold your horses, ijuka. A reasonable poster and analytical hockey mind as you are, this is a bit too early and overblown stuff. Those opponents seemed like lazy ass pylons with no skating ability whatsoever in the one clip you picked up.

Let's see in a few years again. You cannot say **** about these peewee aged boys. Excepetional - maybe for the time being in his age category. Generational - let's wait until the kid is in the NHL - if he hasn't quitted at the age of 15 due to girls, school and stuff.

 

[Patrik Barkov]

Impressive skating for an 11yo. Stats are really impressing as well. Still reeeally early though.

 

[Keke]

I actually like these early threads as it will be interesting to follow their career. Nice work ijuka

Edit. Is he related to Jani Kiviharju?

 

[Gsus]

He is 6 years younger than Dahlin. Just saying.

 

[Hagged]

Most exceptional kids aren't exceptional at draft age anymore.

Though generational talents are always exceptional as kids.

Nice early thread though. Always fun to look back, and Kiviharjus feat sounds thread worthy. How does his offense compare to Laine and Barkov at that age? How about Ristolainen who was also offensive D at that age?

Looks pretty tiny in the clips though.

 

[Stive Morgan]

Is this kid our new Matthias Emilio Petersen?

 

[Newfoundland]

weird thread

 

[ijuka]

Impressive skating for an 11yo. Stats are really impressing as well. Still reeeally early though.

Of course, just as early as the Iguchi thread. That was the comparison I used.


I think that his skating is his most impressive attribute, certainly. Such good agility and very visible, actual explosiveness. He also uses the skating in ways I don't really see that much in juniors. He's also really good at body fakes. I don't see it at that level by the vast majority of players far older than him.

Hold your horses, ijuka. A reasonable poster and analytical hockey mind as you are, this is a bit too early and overblown stuff. Those opponents seemed like lazy ass pylons with no skating ability whatsoever in the one clip you picked up.

Let's see in a few years again. You cannot say **** about these peewee aged boys. Excepetional - maybe for the time being in his age category. Generational - let's wait until the kid is in the NHL - if he hasn't quitted at the age of 15 due to girls, school and stuff.

Well, that's certainly one way of looking at things. Obviously, it's too early to call. But it's not such a big deal if I in the end end up being wrong about him being generational, right? It's not just a single clip or three, I've watched like 8 full games of him. And yeah, I too wish it was more. At this level, we're lucky he plays for TPS which actually records some D2 AAA games. 99% of the teams don't at all.

https://streamable.com/bn8ml

Are these players any better? They're 3 years older. Practice match against a D1 AA team of TPS's.

 

[Raimo Sillanpää]

I fee it's wrong to follow anyone younger than 14-15
Kids are kids, plus they have FAR higher privacy rights than anyone else
This thread should imo be deleted/closed

 

[ijuka]

I believe I made it clear that I used Iguchi Aito as a precedent.

I really don't see what kind of publicity he's now supposed to magically get due to this. My streamables only got like a few hundred views at most. Personally, I'd wish that junior hockey wasn't so dead viewer-wise until like A-Juniors. Enough people already don't care at all as is. Now, harrassing or being creepy is one thing but just appreciating good gameplay should be encouraged more, especially for juniors in my eyes. It makes me sad seeing only like 20-30 people watching such games, and I feel the same way about junior figure skaters. I feel like you vastly overestimate the amount of people who actually give a care about juniors in general.

And there's of course the thing that these videos of his matches are readily available - it's not like I'm magically conjuring them out of nowhere. They could just have decided to not have cameras if they wanted to, no?


Example :



This has 400k+ views. My streamables? Obviously don't even compare. And streamable is specifically such that you don't run into it randomly like on Youtube.

 

[Martinez]

I actually like these early threads as it will be interesting to follow their career. Nice work ijuka

Edit. Is he related to Jani Kiviharju?

Agree 100%. And if they actually make it to the bigs, props to the thread starter

 

[TheFinnishTrap]

Interesting, but as others have said, too early IMO. No need to start putting pressure on him yet.

 

[Noma]

Is he related to Jani Kiviharju?

Yeah, his son.

My personal take on the age question is, that 11-year-olds may be a bit too young to follow like this. On the other hand, I had heard rumours about young mr. Kiviharju before this thread saying he really is an exceptional player for his age. And when it comes to exceptional players it just interesting to follow their careers more closely than just trying to look for random statistics somewhere every now and then.

 

[SaekkiPaelli]

Interesting, but as others have said, too early IMO. No need to start putting pressure on him yet.

Yes, cause he is going to be reading these threads and feel pressure from some random people who think he is really good....

I don't think there is anything wrong with starting a thread like this. However, I don't really get excited for prospects younger than maybe 15, since there are just too many variables. But it's still interesting to look at in the future, and see whats out there at age 10-14

 

[ijuka]

Yes, cause he is going to be reading these threads and feel pressure from some random people who think he is really good....

I don't think there is anything wrong with starting a thread like this. However, I don't really get excited for prospects younger than maybe 15, since there are just too many variables. But it's still interesting to look at in the future, and see whats out there at age 10-14

Well yeah, that's what's a bit strange to me. Surely TPS openly pronouncing him the E-junior of the year gives far more publicity than a thread on a foreign forum? Meh...

Anyway, as there was some criticism that I was clearly misrepresenting his game I decided to make a shift-by-shift type of a video of him playing in a single match. 0+2 for him in it:

https://streamable.com/a5ajg

So this should give a good view of how he actually played the game and I included plenty of failures as well. About 9 minutes is pretty extensive coverage for a single match, it's about a third of his ice time. Oh right, for identification #11 LHD who carries the 'C'. Their usual captain didn't seem to play for some reason. LVP award goes to cameraman.

 

[DoingItCoolKiwi]

Yeah, his son.

My personal take on the age question is, that 11-year-olds may be a bit too young to follow like this. On the other hand, I had heard rumours about young mr. Kiviharju before this thread saying he really is an exceptional player for his age. And when it comes to exceptional players it just interesting to follow their careers more closely than just trying to look for random statistics somewhere every now and then.

Jani Kiviharju is 172 cm / 5'8", so if he comes to his dad, that could already be a thing that stops him from being a generational player in NHL level.

I really feel like a creep reading, talking and watching a 11y/o kid like this, so I'll have to ignore him until he is older, and I don't feel like this anymore

 

[ijuka]

Jani Kiviharju is 172 cm / 5'8", so if he comes to his dad, that could already be a thing that stops him from being a generational player in NHL level.

I really feel like a creep reading, talking and watching a 11y/o kid like this, so I'll have to ignore him until he is older, and I don't feel like this anymore

Well, he was listed at 5'1" and 105 lbs and looking at some average weight / height charts for 11yo boys, it gives 4'8.5" and 78.5 lbs as the averages.

But certainly, if he does end up being that short, that could be an issue. On the other hand, most Norris worthy Ds are relatively short(Or rather, aren't exceptionally tall). Karlsson isn't massive himself.


On the second part, eh, I've never understood that but whatever floats your boat.

 

[DoingItCoolKiwi]

Well, he was listed at 5'1" and 105 lbs and looking at some average weight / height charts for 11yo boys, it gives 4'8.5" and 78.5 lbs as the averages.

But certainly, if he does end up being that short, that could be an issue. On the other hand, most Norris worthy Ds are relatively short(Or rather, aren't exceptionally tall). Karlsson isn't massive himself.


On the second part, eh, I've never understood that but whatever floats your boat.

Yeah he doesn't need to be massive but hitting at least 180cm would be big for him

 

[mazmin]

I remember when I was 11 I played against a kid names Tyler Metcalf. He was called "The Terminator" and was better than Alexander Steen who was also great and in the same league (on my team). Tyler ended up having a pretty good WHL career but never made it to pro. Alex ended up being drafted in the first round 6 years later and is still a star in the NHL.

11 year old successes really don't mean much.

 

[QJL]

I heard about McDavid at Age 12. As far as I'm concerned, people can run with whatever they see on this site.

 

[93LEAFS]

If they aren't old enough to sign up and post on the site, it is a bit weird and feels early to talk about them. Although, you see a ton of kids talked about way before they should be such as the Iguchi or Mattias-Emilio Peterson threads.

Some guys who get talked about at a young age make it like McDavid, Tavares, and Stamkos but in general, it feels like they get overhyped and have too much expectation put on them. It'd be somewhat interesting to see the threads on kids which were started prior to them being teenagers.

 

[VoluntaryDom]

damn

anyway this makes me feel old

im 2020 draft

 

[kelsier]

I just finished looking at the shift by shift vid and damn I gotta say I was damn impressed with this kid. Good job ijuka. Yeah the 2014 draft is damn far away, but that doesn't necessarily mean that a talent couldn't pass the test of time.

Looks like he can really skate, backwards and forward while the movement looks extremely natural and fluid. You'd never guess that he's playing against the older age group as it seemed more as if there was an older kid playing amongst peewees. He was by far the best player on the ice in those clips.

Too early to make any definite predictions but I would be surprised if I didn't hear from this kid in the coming years. That's the very definition of talent right there. Here's to hoping he grooooows.

Seven years till' the first ever 1st overall for the country?

 

[FinnishSniper]

damn

anyway this makes me feel old

im 2020 draft

Just saying, but why do you always bring up your age?