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Toni Utunen | D


thejazz97

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8 minutes ago, SID.IS.SID.ME.IS.ME said:

This pick is getting a lot of love on the HFBoards main prospects forum (which has several knowledgeable Euro posters and is a very different animal from the HF Canucks forum).

You mean the servers are working for you? Hilarious.

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Honesty happy with this draft, Hughes will be an nhl dman and then if 1 of the other d we pick pan out it’s a win for us! I’m so excited seeing our defence bolstered we don’t have a weak anything in our prospect cupboard anymore!!!! 

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From PITB:

 

Toni Utunen - 5’10”, 172 lbs

Some solid international performances for Finland once had Toni Utunen projected to go much higher in the draft. An underwhelming season offensively, however, has Utunen slipping down draft boards, to the point he might not get picked at all.

Utunen played in the second tier Finnish league, Mestis, putting up two goals and 12 points in 28 games. That was enough to lead all junior-aged defencemen in the Mestis, however.

Scouting reports paint a picture of a solid two-way defenceman, that plays very well defensively, limiting both his opponent’s time with the puck and his own mistakes. He lacks the dynamic skating ability to create offence off the rush and isn’t creative enough to create much in the offensive zone, but he’s capable at distributing the puck on the power play and has a decent slap shot that hints at some untapped offensive ability.

It’s not hard to draw a parallel to Sami Vatanen. Both were captains of their U-18 international squads and both played in a lower tier of Finnish hockey in their draft years — Utunen in Mestis and Vatanen in the Jr. A SM-Liiga. Vatanen, too, had an underwhelming draft year, managing just 10 points in 20 games in the Finnish junior league.

Utunen has great defensive awareness, but also has those two words that the Canucks love: character and compete. His leadership and willingness to battle and block shots in the defensive zone are attributes that will help him on his path to making the NHL. Combine that with his well-rounded game and Utunen could be a late-round steal.

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