Eetu Luostarinen

January 2019 – Luostarinen has had a breakout season in his second full season as a Liiga regular. Offensively, he has surpassed career highs in every major stat category with nine goals and 14 assists. His 23 points lead KalPa in scoring. He was snubbed from Finland’s gold medal wining world junior team as a late cut, but has had a great developmental season. He’s still a ways out from cracking an NHL roster, but the progression is evident. Kevin LeBlanc

January 2018 – Eetu Luostarinen is a well-rounded two-way center playing a big role at the top level in Finland for Kuopio KalPa team. Luostarinen is centering the top line and getting power play time on the second unit. His skating is very good once he gets going but still needs to improve his first few steps for the smaller North American ice. Luostarinen has good puck-handling skills and he’s very good at skating the puck up the ice. Luostarinen needs to add more muscle to his 6-3 frame and continue working on defensive zone positioning and faceoffs. Luostarinen isn’t a dynamic offensive player which limits his upside but he could develop into a reliable third line NHL center although he’s a few years away from that. Luostarinen was a late cut from the 2018 World Junior Championship team which was a big surprise to most people following Finnish junior hockey.  Jokke Nevalainen