Goal-Scoring Tolvanen Gets Last Laugh With Kraken 

Those in the building that opening night in Moscow won’t soon forget a teenage Eeli Tolvanen having his first boy-versus-men showdown and leaving older opponents in his dust.

The future Kraken winger, then only 18, was debuting in the rugged, Russian-based Kontinental Hockey League (KHL) for Jokerit from his native Finland and popped not one or two but three goals against onetime NHL netminder Jhonas Enroth of the host Dynamo Minsk team. Tolvanen’s wide-eyed Jokerit teammates, 11 years older on average, included team captain and former NHL forward Peter Regin, whose task was bestowing the squad’s ceremonial “joker’s” hat on a designated game MVP in the locker room afterward.

“I gave the joker’s hat to Eeli, and I told him, ‘Don’t expect to wear this all the time – it’s not that easy a league,’” Regin said of a KHL then widely considered the world’s second-best pro circuit behind the NHL. “We just didn’t expect such a young guy to have that kind of entrance. But he just kept going.”

Many joker’s hats followed as Tolvanen, that KHL season, notched a team-leading 19 goals in 49 games while compiling a KHL record 36 points for a player under age 20 – a mark previously held by then-Washington Capitals standout Evgeny Kuznetsov. The Nashville Predators, who’d drafted Tolvanen 30th overall out of the junior level United States Hockey League the prior summer, seemed to have landed a late-first-round bargain, an unexpected scoring prodigy they quickly gave an NHL taste to once that KHL season ended.

But within a few years of fits and starts, the joke was on Tolvanen. His prior KHL goals seemed to have dried up in the NHL, and the Predators dumped him on waivers.

Tolvanen has had nearly two years since to ponder how his pro hockey life has changed for the better since the Kraken rescued him off the scrap heap in December 2022. He’ll return to Nashville on Tuesday night to play his former Predators squad armed with a two-year, $6.95 million contract extension the Kraken gave him last summer after he’d scored 32 goals and notched 68 points for them his first 129 games.

And Tolvanen will take the ice at Bridgestone Arena, secure in the knowledge his dream KHL season wasn’t a mirage. That there’s an easy answer to the question of whether a natural goal scorer can ever truly forget how to score.

“No,” Tolvanen replied when asked.

But then, seeking to explain further, Tolvanen added: “I think confidence is a big thing, too. You learn to trust yourself. And show that teams can trust you.”

The extension this summer demonstrated mutual trust between Tolvanen, who scored in the opener against St. Louis last week, and a Kraken squad feeling there’s still more of that KHL prodigy within him. In many ways, the second chance success story of Tolvanen, still only 25 and not yet near his development peak, epitomizes a Kraken team now seeking a similar fresh start after a 34-35-13 campaign last season.

Their first three games to date have been highly competitive, a contrast with a year ago when they took two weeks to get going, dug an early hole and spent all season trying in vain to climb out of it. Tolvanen is key to renewed Kraken hopes, most recently playing on a trio alongside longtime linemate Oliver Bjorkstrand and centerman Matty Beniers.

In parts of two Kraken seasons, Tolvanen has amply demonstrated his ability to find the back of nets with lethal, corner-picking wrist shots as well as one-timed slappers. He spent years honing both in a backyard rink at his family’s home in Finland, then turned it loose in the KHL and now – finally – the NHL.

“I think the main thing is just getting trusted, getting the opportunity to play,” Tolvanen said. “You’re put in a situation where you can succeed, and then, of course, there needs to be a little bit of luck, too.”

But luck often follows doing the right things, such as getting to dangerous areas near the net front. Tolvanen did just that in the season opener, then got his stick up to redirect a Ryker Evans shot for a goal. At some point, scorer’s just score. And as Tolvanen indicated, it’s not as if he’d forgotten how to score since that improbable teenage KHL stint.

In fact, there isn’t much about that memorable KHL season he’s forgotten at all.

“Best decision I’ve ever made,” he said.

Tolvanen, even before the KHL, had already given himself a head start towards thriving in a hockey life beyond his years. His brother, Atte, who is 4 ½ years older, had gone to the U.S. to play for Northern Michigan University and Tolvanen, by age 16, decided to leave Finland as well and play for the junior level Sioux City Musketeers in the USHL.

His goal was to learn English, the intricacies of smaller North American ice surfaces and to get his name out there to pro scouts. His father, Markku, and mother, Paivi, moved to Iowa during his first USHL season, setting up in the city of Des Moines, about three hours away, so they could be partway between the brothers and take turns visiting each of them.

Tolvavnen nonetheless navigated homesickness, cultural struggles and high school in a foreign country. But he acclimated, making the USHL all-rookie team his first season and scoring seven goals in seven games for Finland, leading them to gold at the 2016 IIHF World Junior Hockey Championships.

In his second USHL campaign, he scored 30 goals and led the Musketeers to the league final in 2016-17. That prompted the Predators to select Tolvanen as a late first-rounder in the 2017 NHL Draft. But many still suspect Tolvanen might have gone even higher if not for uncertainty about where he’d play next.

Boston College ruled right before the draft that Tolvanen lacked enough high school equivalency credits from Finland to be eligible to play for them in the NCAA. He’d have to play another USHL season and keep attending high school classes in Sioux City – something Tolvanen wasn’t interested in.

“That wasn’t for me,” he said. “I knew that for me, as a hockey player, my best step would be to play in the KHL.”

He joined the Jokerit squad in August 2017, walking into a locker room full of ex-NHL and European pro league veterans, mostly nearing their 30s. Denmark native Regin, then 31, was three seasons removed from his final NHL stint with Chicago and not quite sure what to make of the lanky teenager seemingly eager to make an impression.

“He was a first-round pick, so I figured he must have some talent,” Regin said. “But I didn’t know much about him. Then, the first couple of skates we had, he had this weird – it sounds negative to say that, but it isn’t – and different type of wrist shot.

“And I just remember him scoring so many goals in practice. Then, he was good in the preseason. But then, he goes out in that first game and scores a hat-trick. That, I didn’t expect.”

Nor did anyone else.

The Jokerit goalie, a 30-year-old American named Ryan Zapolski, remembered teammates scratching their heads in the victorious postgame locker room, wondering how the shy, quiet kid had pulled off his three-goal, four-point debut.

“That’s a difficult league to score goals in,” Zapolski said. “There aren’t many high-scoring games in that league. So, I mean, yeah. Guys were surprised. Guys knew his ability. But they didn’t think he’d be able to put it together that quickly.”

Just like Regin, Zapolski had seen practice glimpses of Tolvanen’s ability. After all, it was Zapolski giving up many of the abundant practice goals Tolvanen compiled.

But practice was one thing. Doing it in actual pro games, especially as word got around about Tolvanen and older opponents began planning diligently to stop him, was quite different.

“Just the confidence he had in his shot,” Zapolski said. “It was elite back then, and that was in bigger (European) rinks.”

Along the way, Tolvanen said he learned how to “be a pro” from the men sharing his dressing room. He was guided daily by his older teammates, mainly Regin and former NHL forward Brian O’Neill, as well as by the Jokerit team’s general manager, Jari Kurri, best known as Wayne Gretzky’s top linemate back with the 1980s Edmonton Oilers.

“I think we tried to protect him,” Regin said. “Especially on the ice. The KHL was tough and could have some hard games. And the team could go through some tough times.

“We made sure that when we did have tough times, it wasn’t all on him, and it was more on the veterans,” he added. “But that said, he also kind of took charge. He was running the first power play unit, and we encouraged him to take charge and be a leading player for us.”

But it was off the ice, Tolvanen said; the older players taught him lessons that proved vital in later years. Namely, how to handle himself maturely and not allow on-ice setbacks to impact his positive mindset and relations with teammates.

“When you’re a young guy, you have to respect the other guys,” Tolvanen said. “And they’d tell me ‘Do this’ and “Do that’ and ‘Help out the equipment guys.’

“You try to be the guy that doesn’t make a big deal about yourself. When you’re a young guy, you don’t want to jump in the locker room and try to be a big name.”

But Tolvanen was a big name for Jokerit all season, scoring some big playoff goals on a run well into the second round before being toppled by future New York Islanders netminder Ilya Sorokin and his CSKA Moscow squad. Tolvanen loved the camaraderie he grew to have with players far older and more experienced.

“On the road, it was quite an atmosphere – it was like a mini-NHL,” Tolvanen said. “You’d go on the road, go out to dinner. It was quite cool. They took me under their wing, and I got to experience that part of the hockey season as well.”

Regin said Tolvanen’s teammates really took to him.

“Eeli is just overall a great guy that deserves everything he’s gotten,” Regin said. “He was obviously a great player but such a good guy too. I think anyone that’s ever played with him is pulling for him.”

And like Tolvanen, Regin agrees that a natural goal scorer – especially one proven in a higher pro level such as the KHL at a young age – doesn’t just forget how to score. He isn’t surprised his one-time teammate has found a more permanent Kraken home.

“That shot,” Regin said. “He has a special shot. A different shot. And he’s a smart player too.

“We all figured that he was going to find a way eventually. He’s too good to not find a way to have success.”