Top 25 under 25 2022: Roni Hirvonen is n°7

Roni Hirvonen and Team Finland were less than an inch away from winning the 2022 World Junior Men’s Championship against Canada last month when Topi Niemelä’s shot was stopped from the line by Mason McTavish. It would have capped off a great tournament for the Finnish captain, who led the team in more ways than one, including leading the offense for the front line and setting the tone with his intensity and effort.

Hirvonen isn’t the Leafs’ best forward, and according to our list, he’s not second either, but he brings unique, tangible skills that others around him don’t have, and he does so at a level that is almost guaranteed to see the NHL play a significant role in the near future.

The player

Hirvonen came to the Leafs as a 2020 second-round pick, the same draft as Amirov, Niemelä, Villeneuve and Ovchinnikov. Hirvonen was already in the Liiga in his draft year and spent two more seasons there steadily improving his output and role. Last season, he was on the third line and was part of the second unit on the power play at 19/20. In the playoffs, Hirvonen scored three goals and six points in five games as he moved into the top six.

In the Liiga for his team at HIFK, Hirvonen had a 60% shooting share (his team’s best) in somewhat skewed attacking minutes playing primarily as a winger, although his game was suited to a move towards the center at any given time. However, as a teenager in a men’s league there were just better options in the middle, but in world juniors Hirvonen was 1C for Finland who won silver. As Hirvonen matures physically, we’ll see him moving to the center a bit more often. I think he will fight for the first six minutes this season for HIFK, as he has already shown in pre-season.

There are some interesting stats from the Liiga stats page that I would now like to share. First, Hirvonen took 167 shots on the season, 95 on net for nine goals. His 95 shots were 30th in the league while playing just 14 minutes a night. Now here’s the even cooler part: they also tracked the hardest shot in a game for each player (I guess they have all the shot data but only share the hardest shots). Roni Hirvonen had the hardest shot of all his team members at 157 km/h or 95 mph! Compared to the league, this shooting speed is the seventh in the entire Liiga!

As we’ve discussed with other “Kyle Dubas” prospects like Pontus Holmberg, Nick Abruzzese and, to a lesser extent, Semyon Der-Arguchintsev, size doesn’t matter. This really isn’t the case when you have a prospect who “would give a shit” is higher than the big guy he’s playing against. Speed, a low center, and a big ass can make up for pure, raw muscle. We’ve seen that be the case with Brendan Gallagher, Brad Marchand and even Tyler Ennis who showed us in Toronto his ability to take enough space in the blue paint so he could score and get sticks on the pucks.

Hirvonen was signed to an ELC by the Leafs over the summer and returned on loan to Helsinki. Expect him to join the Marlies at the end of the year and maybe stay, but we’re unclear on Hirvonen’s Liiga contract. He may only have a year left.

Strong points

Driving to the net the smart way.

Agility and punctual.

Separating a big player from the puck.

The Votes

You’d be hard pressed to find anyone who wasn’t impressed with Hirvonen’s performance at the Men’s World Juniors as he led Finland to a silver medal. He was a powerful offensive mover for his line, putting in a lot of hard work and making creative plays to score. The Leafs have a trio of guys like Hirvonen (Holmberg and Abruzzese) who are short in stature, but do incredibly well in net when it comes to creating space, finding rebounds and pushing for those second chances. And they all managed to score that way. Holmberg is probably the most of the three because he’s the oldest, but I’d say Hirvonen is better at it and I’d expect more offense to come from that.

Being in net isn’t the only way Hirvonen produces, he does well playing corners and finding his teammates for chances from the wing in low-to-high plays. Hirvonen is a very good distributor and he also scores a lot for himself. I expect Hirvonen to be a midfielder or a winger in a few years, and I think that ceiling is also why I put him above Niemelä as well. For Niemelä, who I guess we’ll talk about later this week, I don’t see him reaching as high in defense as Hirvonen can reach as a striker.

dhammm: Reasons to be optimistic about Roni Hirvonen: He’s been playing against men since his draft year as a little guy and his production has gone up in a pretty linear fashion. Reasons to be pessimistic about Roni Hirvonen: He still isn’t scoring all that much and he appears to be delaying his AHL debut until at least next spring. I have a lot of doubts about his development path combined with production and size, and Hirvonen doesn’t look too good when looking at him quantitatively. His production continues to ramp up and a convincing AHL debut near the end of the 2022-23 season will do a lot to make me believe in him relative to the consensus, but it’s only his age and room for growth that make me note it above Joey Anderson or Alex Steeves, two players who are also shaping up as future depth/energy forwards who have both done more, proven more and are much closer to the NHL than Hirvonen.

Brigstew: He is a real double threat offensively with both his game and he has a very good shot. He plays tough and is underrated as a pest with his style of play – not that he’s dirty or physical, but he does seem to annoy his opponents at times. He could become an interesting two-way winger on a third line in a few years, although he has some improvements to make to get there. It’s the standard kind of stuff: getting stronger, continuing to work on improving your skating to become a bit more explosive and fast, and so on.

TomK421: Roni! Roni! Roni! Oh ! Oh ! Oh ! Yes, I’m definitely on the Finnish team train for the WJC this summer. The frame of a mid 6 forward is there and like the other guys I have rated in this area, the year over year improvement is measurable and noticeable. I think he has a good chance of being a useful Leaf in a few years.