The most difficult part of following the Penguins' prospects in juniors, college, or Europe, is easily trying to keep track of the Finnish prospects, for a few different reasons.
The way I follow a lot of these guys is from following their teams on Twitter, I follow each of their teams. Obviously, they're not posting in English. That part is fine, since I can get away with just skimming for their names among all the tweets in Finnish, which makes me feel like Ed from Good Burger:
The more difficult part is that, unless it's a prospect like 20-year-old 2019 seventh-round forward Valterri Puustinen who is a mainstay on his team's roster in Liiga, the top men's league in Finland, they could be anywhere.
The Penguins have two prospects who are more borderline Liiga players -- 2019 seventh-round pick Santeri Airola and 2017 sixth-round pick Antti Palojarvi, both of whom are 20-year-old defensemen.
If they aren't sticking on the roster of the Liiga team, they could be on the U20 junior team, or they could be loaned to the second-tier professional league, Mestis, which isn't as strong as Liiga but still allows them the benefit of developing while playing against grown men.
So, when one of their teams tweets out the lines and pairings before a game, and one of them is missing, the hunt is on to find out what happened to them. Are they hurt? Were they assigned to a different team? These Finnish teams don't always put out press releases for every injury or roster move so it's always a challenge.
Last season, Palojarvi bounced back and forth between Lukko's Liiga and U20 teams, not quite ready to stick in the top league but too good for the junior team. Toward the end of the season, he was loaned to a Mestis team. This season has started out in much of the same way, playing for both the Liiga and U20 team.
When I was putting together this week's feature, I saw he didn't play anywhere this week, so I had to search. Today, Wednesday, Lukko announced that Palojarvi was being loaned to Hokki of the second-tier professional league, Mestis, and will make his debut on the left side of Hokki's top pairing.
If needed, Lukko is still able to recall Palojarvi from Hokki, but otherwise the loan is for the full season.
"We are looking for a longer term solution to the defense, and we got a full-season loan, which is always better than short-term loans," said Joonas Karjalainen, Hokki's sports director.
"We chose this solution because we have a lot of players in the defense and we want to make sure that Palojärvi gets enough men's games this season," said Lukko sports director Kalle Sahlstedt.
Alright, he's been located, Hokki has been followed on Twitter. Great.
Now, to check on Airola. He didn't play this week either. Another mystery.
After playing primarily in Finnish juniors last season, Airola’s plan this season was to move to the second-tier professional Mestis league and play for Kettera. At the beginning of the season, Airola was instead loaned to SaiPa of the top men’s league, Liiga, where he began his season. After missing nearly a month due to injury, he was cleared to play and returned to Kettera where he played one game.
This week, Airola was away from his team while he represented Finland in a series of three U20 exhibition games against the Czech junior team as preparation for the World Junior Championship. He scored the opening goal of the third game.
So, that's what the elusive Finns have been up to this week. Here's a look at what the other prospects did:
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FORWARDS
Judd Caulfield
Position: Forward
Size: 6-3/207
Shoots: Right
Drafted: 2019, fifth round
Team: North Dakota (NCAA)
Season totals: 6 games, 1 assist
Caulfield played in North Dakota's two games this week and was scoreless.
Liam Gorman
Position: Center
Size: 6-3/196
Shoots: Left
Drafted: 2018, sixth round
Team: Princeton (NCAA)
Season totals: 4 games, 2 assists
Gorman played in two games this week and recorded no points.
Filip Hallander
Position: Center/Wing
Size: 6-1/190
Shoots: Left
Drafted: 2018, second round
Team: Lulea HF (SHL)
Season totals: 2 games, 1 assist
Hallander fractured his leg in his second game of the season and is expected to be out until at least Christmas.
Nathan Legare
Position: Right wing
Size: 6-0/205
Shoots: Right
Drafted: 2019, third round
Team: Baie-Comeau Drakkar (QMJHL)
Season totals: 19 games, 9 goals, 9 assists
Legare scored two goals and one assist in three back-to-back-to-back games this week. On Thursday, Legare had the secondary assist on the opening goal of a 3-2 win over the Val-d'Or Foreurs. On Friday, he scored the game-winning goal in overtime on a power play against the Rouyn-Noranda Huskies:
On Saturday, Legare scored the lone goal -- a shorthanded tally -- in a 3-1 loss to the Huskies:
Linus Olund
Position: Center
Size: 5-11/183
Shoots: Left
Drafted: 2017, fifth round
Team: Brynas IF (SHL)
Season totals: 13 games, 1 goal, 3 assists
Olund and Brynas did not play this week.
Nikita Pavlychev
Position: Center
Size: 6-8/225
Shoots: Left
Drafted: 2015, seventh round
Team: Penn State (NCAA)
Season totals: 7 games, 2 goal, 4 assists
Pavlychev scored one goal in his two games this week:
Samuel Poulin
Position: Wing
Size: 6-1/207
Shoots: Left
Drafted: 2019, first round
Team: Sherbrooke Phoenix (QMJHL)
Season totals: 18 games, 15 goals, 20 assists
Poulin had in insane week with five goals (including a hat trick on Sunday) and two assists in two games, bringing his points per game average to 1.94. This was his third goal on Sunday:
Valtteri Puustinen
Position: Wing
Size: 5-9/183
Shoots: Right
Drafted: 2019, seventh round
Team: HPK (Liiga)
Season totals: 19 games, 7 goals, 7 assists
Puustinen was scoreless in one game.
DEFENSEMEN
Calen Addison
Size: 5-10/180
Shoots: Right
Drafted: 2018, second round
Team: Lethbridge Hurricanes (WHL)
Season totals: 20 games, 4 goals, 15 assists
Addison picked up five assists in three games, and is now ranked second on the Hurricanes in assists.
Addison will play for Team WHL in the CIBC Canada-Russia junior series on Nov. 13 and 14.
Santeri Airola
Size: 5-11/165
Shoots: Right
Drafted: 2019, seventh round
Team: SaiPa (Liiga), Kettera (Mestis)
Season totals: 2 games with SaiPa, 1 game with Kettera
Airola was with the junior team this week.
Ryan Jones
Size: 6-2/186
Shoots: Left
Drafted: 2016, fourth round
Team: Nebraska-Omaha (NCAA)
Season totals: 8 games, 2 goals, 3 assists
Jones was scoreless in two games.
Antti Palojarvi
Size: 6-1/172
Shoots: Left
Drafted: 2017, sixth round
Team: Lukko (Liiga), Lukko U20 (Jr. A SM-liiga)
Season totals: 5 games with Lukko; 14 games, 3 assists Lukko U20
Palojarvi did not play this week and will make his Hokki debut today, Wednesday.
Clayton Phillips
Size: 5-11/183
Shoots: Left
Drafted: 2017, third round
Team: Penn State (NCAA)
Season totals: 9 games, 1 goal, 4 assists
Phillips scored one goal (his first of the season) and one assist in two games. That's Pavlychev hugging him from the bench:
First goal as a Nittany Lion for @philli_clay tonight!! ? #WeAre #HockeyValley pic.twitter.com/dUYB4JKZRm
— Penn State Men’s Hockey (@PennStateMHKY) November 10, 2019
William Reilly
Size: 6-2/196
Drafted: 2017, seventh round
Team: Rensselaer Polytech (NCAA)
Season totals: 8 games, 4 goal, 5 assists
Reilly scored one goal and two assists in two games this week. His goal came on the power play:
