Juuso Mäenpää

August 2021 – Mäenpää went undrafted for the second consecutive season. Nick Richard

October 2020 – Mäenpää passed through the 2020 NHL Draft without a selection. He will re-enter the draft in 2021.  Jokke Nevalainen

March 2020 – Mäenpää finished his rookie season at Jr. SM-liiga with 12 goals and 49 points in 52 game, and he took home the Best Rookie award at the end of the regular season. Mäenpää had an even better start to the season, scoring 26 points in his first 16 games before slowing down significantly after that. Even then, only one under-18 player had more points or a better points-per-game average than Mäenpää. Mäenpää is a playmaking center who is very good at creating plays from the middle. His passing skills are great and he also has very good vision. He also plays a reliable two-way game which is needed from centers. But the problem is that he’s only 5-foot-7, so he’s not expected to be a center at the NHL level. However, switching to the wing is not so easy for playmakers like him. But Mäenpää has a lot of good qualities that can help him transition to the wing and to the pro level. He is a great skater who doesn’t just have great acceleration and edge work like many small players but his top speed is also very good. Mäenpää’s effort level on the ice is also very good, so he can help the team even when he doesn’t have the puck on his stick. Mäenpää is a long-term project who will need to prove himself over and over again at every level because of his size. It is definitely not impossible for someone his size to make it to the NHL these days but it is still not a foregone conclusion. But if he makes it to the NHL, he will be there to produce offense, so the payout could be really nice. But because of the risk involved, he is projected to be drafted in the middle rounds of the 2020 NHL Entry Draft.  Jokke Nevalainen