The National Hockey League and the National Hockey League Players Association announced today that defensemen Olli Määttä and Juuso Välimäki of Utah Hockey Club will represent Team Finland at the 2025 4 Nations Faceoff.
Replacing the NHL All-Star Game this year, the 4 Nations Faceoff features teams from Canada, Finland, Sweden, and the United States in a contest for international hockey supremacy. The event will run from Feb. 12 through Feb. 20 with Boston and Montreal serving as the two host cities. The four teams will play a round-robin style tournament with the championship game to be played on Feb. 20 at TD Garden in Boston.
“I think it's a great tournament,” said Määttä of the upcoming 4 Nations Faceoff. “Last time out in the [2016 World Cup of Hockey], we had the best players in the world playing against each other. So that's going to be really cool again.”
Määttä, acquired on Oct. 29 in a trade with the Detroit Red Wings, has quickly become a staple on Utah’s blue line. Primarily playing alongside Mikhail Sergachev on Utah’s top defense pair, Määttä has recorded two assists and a +5 rating through 15 games with his new team.
Määttä hails from Jyvaskyla, a city of roughly 150,000 people in central Finland. The 30-year-old defenseman has represented his country three times at the IIHF World Junior Championships, including in 2011 when he became the youngest player ever named to Finland’s World Junior team at the age of 16. He has also played for Finland three times in the IIHF World Championship tournament and earned a silver medal in 2021 as one of the team’s alternate captains. The highlight of Määttä’s international play however, came in 2014 when he helped Finland earn a bronze medal at the Winter Olympics in Sochi. Määttä was one of Finland’s top scorers in the Olympics with five points (3G, 2A) in six games en route to the podium.
“Obviously there's a lot of pride in our hockey,” said Määttä. “I think that's basically ingrained in our culture. Being a smaller country, it does mean a lot. And I know people back home are going to be watching and waking up during the night just to watch the [4 Nations Faceoff] games.”
Määttä has played in 706 career NHL games as a stabilizing defenseman and was a key component to the Pittsburgh Penguins’ Stanley Cup Championships in 2016 and 2017. Throughout the course of his NHL career, Määttä has seen action with the Penguins, Chicago Blackhawks, Los Angeles Kings, and Red Wings before arriving in the Beehive State.
Välimäki, 26, has tabbed one assist through 19 games with Utah in his third season playing for Head Coach Andre Tourigny. Under Tourigny, Välimäki recorded the best two campaigns of his career with the Arizona Coyotes including a career-high 34 points (4G, 30A) in 2022-23.
“It feels amazing, and it's been a goal of mine to get into that tournament,” said Välimäki. “And also just in general to be able to play for teams on these big stages. It's a big honor to be named to that team.”
Välimäki was born in Tampere, a city in the heart of the Finnish Lakeland. After rising through Finland’s junior hockey ranks, he earned spots on Finland’s IIHF World Junior Championship roster in 2017 and again in 2018 when he served as the team’s captain.
“It's cool to be able to [represent Finland] now as myself and hopefully inspire some kids and bring some joy to the country and the people over there,” said Välimäki. “That's the ultimate goal there.”
During the COVID-altered 2020-21 season, Välimäki returned to his native land to play in Finland’s top professional league for Ilves Tampere, a club in Välimäki’s hometown.
Both Maatta and Valimaki, like most other young hockey fans in Finland, grew up watching Team Finland in international play. Maatta even remembers watching his countrymen in the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.
“I remember watching the 2002 Olympics here in Salt Lake City,” recalled Maatta as he explained how he had to wake up in the middle of the night at eight years old to watch Team Finland. “I think memories like that puts a little more emphasis on these tournaments and games.”
In just over two months, Maatta and Valimaki will be the ones on the ice in the 4 Nations Faceoff while young hockey fans and future NHLers wake up in the middle of the night across Finland to cheer on their countrymen.
