Just wanted to wish Valtteri Puustinen the best in Colorado and say that it was cool to watch his growth over the years here. He went undrafted in his first two years of eligibility, the Penguins ended up getting him in the seventh round. He’s leaving the organization fourth all-time in points and assists and tied for fifth in goals for Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, and they got 66 NHL games out of him. Absolute win of a pick for where they got him.
It was cool to see the growth off the ice, too. I first interviewed him when he was back in Finland and he didn’t speak English, and he had me submit questions over email and he enlisted a teammate to help translate for him. When he made his NHL debut his English was still so limited at the time that he couldn’t speak with reporters at all. He showed up to develop camp the next year very excited to try and powered through a media scrum, and got way more comfortable over the years.
I’ve mentioned before about how I’ve been loosely trying to learn Finnish, and Puustinen was perhaps the Finn who encouraged it the most, he’d always respond to my basic questions in fast, full answers like I was fluent and give me a moment to let my brain catch up to respond again. He was fun to deal with.
THE ASYLUM
Just wanted to wish Valtteri Puustinen the best in Colorado and say that it was cool to watch his growth over the years here. He went undrafted in his first two years of eligibility, the Penguins ended up getting him in the seventh round. He’s leaving the organization fourth all-time in points and assists and tied for fifth in goals for Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, and they got 66 NHL games out of him. Absolute win of a pick for where they got him.
It was cool to see the growth off the ice, too. I first interviewed him when he was back in Finland and he didn’t speak English, and he had me submit questions over email and he enlisted a teammate to help translate for him. When he made his NHL debut his English was still so limited at the time that he couldn’t speak with reporters at all. He showed up to develop camp the next year very excited to try and powered through a media scrum, and got way more comfortable over the years.
I’ve mentioned before about how I’ve been loosely trying to learn Finnish, and Puustinen was perhaps the Finn who encouraged it the most, he’d always respond to my basic questions in fast, full answers like I was fluent and give me a moment to let my brain catch up to respond again. He was fun to deal with.
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