{"id":443940,"date":"2024-06-28T08:45:32","date_gmt":"2024-06-28T12:45:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/?p=443940"},"modified":"2025-11-27T18:15:53","modified_gmt":"2025-11-27T23:15:53","slug":"veeti-vaisanen-scouting-report-2024-nhl-draft-32","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2024\/06\/28\/veeti-vaisanen-scouting-report-2024-nhl-draft-32\/","title":{"rendered":"Veeti V\u00e4is\u00e4nen Scouting Report: 2024 NHL Draft #32"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em><strong>Welcome back to Top Shelf Prospects, the column that brings you the next crop of professional hockey players. Each day our LWOS Prospects Writers will bring you a new player profile or topical article in the lead-up to the 2024 NHL Entry Draft. Be sure to bookmark the site, follow\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/lastwordbkerr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Ben Kerr<\/a>, and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/mr_frans2603\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Frederik Frandsen<\/a>\u00a0on Twitter, and spread the word for the site that will bring you analytical and critical profiles and scouting reports! Last Word On Hockey Prospects is your new\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2023-nhl-entry-draft-headquarters\/\" target=\"_self\">headquarters for everything \u201cNHL Draft\u201d<\/a>! Today we bring you our Veeti V\u00e4is\u00e4nen Scouting Report.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<div id=\"browsi_adWrapper_ai_0_ati_1_rc_0\">\n<div id=\"browsi_adContainer_ai_0_ati_1_rc_0\" class=\"up-show\" data-google-query-id=\"CPyxsuiF_YYDFYxbkQUdr34K8Q\">The last player making our first round 2024 NHL Entry Draft projections is none other than Finnish defenceman, Veeti V\u00e4is\u00e4nen. A player with all-round qualities up and down the ice, but what makes V\u00e4is\u00e4nen intriguing is that many other defence prospects lacks an area where he truly excels. Therefore, the result is, he gets lost in a draft filled with plenty of top-defencemen. However, despite getting lost in the spotlight the Finnish teenager had a great season overall. Playing at home in Finland he achieved 50 games for KooKoo in the top-flight of Finnish hockey. A league with professional players, with NHL experience. During those 50 games, he had 10 points. This resulted in him playing with Finland at the U-18 Championship, where he was an assistant captain, and had two assists in five games.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<h2 data-google-query-id=\"CPyxsuiF_YYDFYxbkQUdr34K8Q\">Veeti V\u00e4is\u00e4nen 2024 NHL Draft Scouting Report<\/h2>\n<div data-google-query-id=\"CPyxsuiF_YYDFYxbkQUdr34K8Q\">\n<p>Defenceman \u2014 Shoots Left<br \/>\nBorn June 15th, 2006 \u2014 Hamina, FIN<br \/>\nHeight 6\u20190\u2033 \u2014 Weight 187 lbs [184 cm \/ 85 kg]<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.eliteprospects.com\/iframe_player_stats_small.php?player=793158\" width=\"700\" height=\"435\" frameborder=\"0\"><span data-mce-type=\"bookmark\" style=\"width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;\" class=\"mce_SELRES_start\">\ufeff<\/span><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3>Skating:<\/h3>\n<p>Like many aspects of Veeti V\u00e4is\u00e4nen&#8217;s game, his skating is solid, but not amazing. It won&#8217;t blow anyone away, but it also won&#8217;t be a weakness for him. His speed is fairly average with decent top speed, but lacking acceleration. This partly comes from how stiff his strides are and how his balance isn&#8217;t perfect, meaning he has to compensate for his mechanics, which hurts the overall skating. When he gets it going, his edges are strong enough, and allows him to maneuver at an effective level of performance.<\/p>\n<p>Off the puck, he has a lot of smart movement, which allows him to be able to get into the right areas to get involved in games. His transition game mostly comes from his maturity rather than skating, as he often uses a mix of patience and awareness to get away from pressure and slow the game down behind the net.<\/p>\n<h3>Offensive Game<\/h3>\n<p>Veeti V\u00e4is\u00e4nen plays a very controlled and simple offensive game. It&#8217;s once again not going to blow anyone away, but as a defenceman, it doesn&#8217;t really need to. He is incredibly smart as a puck mover and makes simple but correct plays on the blue line. His vision and playmaking abilities are again strong for a defenceman. These skills allow him to make plays from the point that can open up the opposing defence.<\/p>\n<p>His shot is also fairly good overall, as it comes off his blade with a ton of power. This combines with his ability to get pucks through traffic and ultimately, test the goalie. However, the accuracy in terms of hitting the net and not being straight in the stomach is missing. It&#8217;s often simply shots that lack a bit of a goalscoring instinct. He also plays things very safe and will back out even though he could have made a pinch to keep the zone. A conservative style of offence, that V\u00e4is\u00e4nen would do well to change with a tweak towards the brave and creative.<\/p>\n<h3>Defensive Game<\/h3>\n<p>By far the best and most noticeable part of Veeti V\u00e4is\u00e4nen is how he plays defence. It&#8217;s extremely mature, smart, and calculated. His body positioning is clean towards the puck carrier and his stick is active and disciplined. He always seems to force plays to the outside rather than get beat on the inside.<\/p>\n<p>He also is quite solid when it comes to noticing a play developing and finding a way to get into a position to block lanes with his body or stick. It&#8217;s once again simple, calm, and calculated without any drama. Which as a defenceman, are all qualities that a lot of teams would love to have in their system.<\/p>\n<h3>Projection and Comparison on Veeti V\u00e4is\u00e4nen&#8217;s Scouting Report<\/h3>\n<p>Veeti V\u00e4is\u00e4nen will by no means be the most exciting pick of the draft. He is an incredibly safe and in some ways boring pick to make. The Finnish defender won&#8217;t score more than 20 points in a season or make a highlight real plays like some of the other prospects.<\/p>\n<p>However, the value of picking Veeti V\u00e4is\u00e4nen could be just as huge in the long run. Because what V\u00e4is\u00e4nen offers in terms of potential is stability on the backend. He is the type of player who can play 20 minutes per game without anyone noticing, similar to a player like <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/c\/cernaer01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-06-28_hr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Erik Cernak<\/a>. One you won&#8217;t see in the headlines, but one that helps the other team&#8217;s stars stay off the scoresheet. It will need some refinement and improvements, but Veeti V\u00e4is\u00e4nen could become a steady and stable top-four defenceman in the NHL.<\/p>\n<p>Main photo: Christopher Hanewinckel-USA TODAY Sports<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Welcome back to Top Shelf Prospects, the column that brings you the next crop of professional hockey players. Each day our LWOS Prospects Writers will bring you a new player profile or topical article in the lead-up to the 2024 NHL Entry Draft. Be sure to bookmark the site, follow\u00a0Ben Kerr, and\u00a0Frederik Frandsen\u00a0on Twitter, and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4435,"featured_media":138960,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3271,1279,3462,309],"tags":[7840,8114,5658,475,5726],"class_list":["post-443940","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-european-leagues","category-nhl-draft","category-nhl-prospects","category-nhl-top-prospects","tag-2024-nhl-draft","tag-2025-nhl-draft","tag-liiga","tag-nhl-prospects","tag-team-finland"],"modified_by":"Michael Kovacs, ADMIN","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/443940","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4435"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=443940"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/443940\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":478638,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/443940\/revisions\/478638"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/138960"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=443940"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=443940"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=443940"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}