http://www.tilastopalvelu.fi/ih/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=8&gid=3272
Making his A Junior debut tonight vs Kärpät.
Making his A Junior debut tonight vs Kärpät.
Great skater for sure hopefully he grows more, would be perfect if he can reach at least around 182 cm. Seems the best Finnish prospects are either small around 174-178 cm ( Vatanen, Tolvanen, Granlund, Rajala) or tall around 190 + ( Laine, Barkov, Puljujarvi, Ristolainen ). Would be interesting to see a great prospect in the middle of those heights.
He seems very promising, hope he ends up 183cm or over and stays healthy. Would be even better if he played center.Never heard of this guy! Ofcourse the boy is a bit too young to make conclusions but if the interest and evolution progress remains we might have a first round pick!
Thanks. Hope it's just due to a minor injury or something similar.Update?
Well, his production has been relatively disappointing lately and it seems like his u-17 national team stint didn't go that well either. I'm not sure what's up or if something's wrong like him having a slight injury or what. It'll be interesting to see how he does in the u-16 international tournament starting tomorrow.
Thanks. Hope it's just due to a minor injury or something similar.
His perfomances with the national team have been a bit underwhelming from what I've seen and seems like Nikkanen has taken over the #1 prospect status from 01 age group.
It's early going, but right now Henri Nikkanen, Kaapo Kakko and Matias Maccelli might all be ahead of Aaltonen when thinking of Finnish forwards eligible for 2019 NHL draft.
Hopefully Maccelli will come more mature mentally
I remember Rajala as being a huge perimeter player. Is that true of Aaltonen?Hope he doesn't become a carbon copy of Toni Rajala. Someone in Jatkoaika said that Rajala's game looked same in the juniors.
A small sample size, but he seems more eager to drive to the net from what I've seen.I remember Rajala as being a huge perimeter player. Is that true of Aaltonen?
Didn't Mikko Kokkonen play in that tournament last august too? I don't think that's a marketing trick, probably more to do with giving him some idea what is like to play at a pro-level. EDIT: Kokkonen played in Pitsi tournament, not thisIt appears that Leevi Aaltonen is going to play with KalPa's Liiga team in a tournament this August. I have no idea of whether that's just a marketing trick but it certainly will be interesting to see how he can handle it.
Source:
http://www.lappeenrannanuutiset.fi/...oukkuetta-elokuussa-spa-areenan-pihalle-tulee
3+2=5 in 4 games places Leevi Aaltonen in all-time top 10 for u17 players in Ivan Hlinka tournament. For Finns, he's only behind Aleksander Barkov and Juuso Ikonen and tied with Jesse Puljujärvi in this regard.
He also had a total empty net in this last game vs USA but missed the goal, unfortunately.
He showed some good things and his play was actually quite impressive overall considering he didn't really get anything done at the u17 level last season. He doesn't quite have the size to be able to compete in strength and got pushed around a bit, but still showed that he had pretty good strength for his size and he also showed a surprisingly strong level of compete. He really fought hard even though he often didn't manage to get anything out of it.
Still, all in all, he showed improvement in some of the areas I was concerned about before the season and also showed some promise, even though he still wasn't completely consistent with basic puck actions. Something to build upon for sure and makes me quite exciting for this upcoming season.
Hockey sense could be an issue, yes, and he lacks some creativity and precision with the puck. But still, this is much more promising than his international games last year.My main concern with him is that he doesn't really show that much hockey sense and is weak with the puck. I mean, it's obvious that he is physically weaker than the majority of his opponents, but still it seems that he loses too many puck battles to be a real top prospect at this point. He looked better today though. Hopefully with added strength and experience he can rise to a new level.