Prospect Info: Kasper Pikkarainen RW 85 Overall Round 3 2024 DRAFT

[evnted]

+a goal and 35PIM today (not a typo). liiga j20 is kinda hard to catch viewings of, but ill see if i can get one in. hopefully he finishes strong so tom can throw him away for no reason

 

[NjdevilfanJim]

+a goal and 35PIM today (not a typo). liiga j20 is kinda hard to catch viewings of, but ill see if i can get one in. hopefully he finishes strong so tom can throw him away for no reason

That's his track record

 

[The Wumpus]

+a goal and 35PIM today (not a typo). liiga j20 is kinda hard to catch viewings of, but ill see if i can get one in. hopefully he finishes strong so tom can throw him away for no reason

Rare accomplishment. Three majors, a misconduct, and a game misconduct?

 

[evnted]

Rare accomplishment. Three majors, a misconduct, and a game misconduct?

 

[The Wumpus]

View attachment 990099

And one moving violation

 

[Jukurit]

#64 in black. Fought Sens prospect Eerik Wallenius.

 

[evnted]

believe it or not i actually caught his game this morning

• played heavy on the forecheck. lined up defenders going for pucks and crunched them. physicality helped force turnovers which let him get pucks back up high to generate chances
• outright mean per usual. threw hits, jabs, slashes, crosschecks, you name it. not a player id want to deal with in a puck battle, hes looking to hurt. mixed it up after whistles
• pace of play wasnt as bad as in the red deer viewing, thought he had a bit more jump to his game. that said, hes still doing the gliding thing (i hesitate to call it coasting since i think that implies being disengaged, which hes not, but its effectively that). stops moving his feet way too much, on and off the puck. he has the presence of mind to proactively cut off passing lanes and use his stick to tie up attackers, and when he has a step he usually does, but a lot of the time in the D zone hes just turning/drifting around and hes not always able to execute on these ideas
• offensively he relies too much on his momentum to carry him while trying to stickhandle/line up a play and it can burn him since it slows him down. he needs to actively stay in motion on the puck more. might be some awareness issues at play as well, perhaps, since his responsiveness to pressure isnt always great. can get caught from behind by a backchecker while trying to make a move
• at his best in and around the net today. excellent at establishing position, took pucks to the middle, generated some chaos near the crease, fought through traffic to get to pucks down low, etc. i know ive seen some intriguing playmaking flashes from him but, like the game i caught in the W, the puck play was inconsistent/occasionally reckless

im inclined to call this season a mulligan given how much time he spent injured (on top of moving overseas, going back to j20 so late, being really young for his class, etc.) but, given the level hes playing at, i wasnt too impressed. that said, i want to highlight a shift he had following the 1st TPS goal because it was legitimately great and everything youd want to see him build off of:

starting deep in the D zone, he correctly anticipates an opp F getting a pass from below the goal line and drops back to stickcheck him. his teammate got a poke on it first, so he cleanly corrals the loose puck and makes a quick pass to his teammate to start moving up the ice. he gets it back and, upon entering the zone, makes a sneaky good pass through the opp Ds triangle to find a trailer. the guy fumbles it trying to send it back over, so pikkarainen crashes down low to retrieve the loose puck. he shows strong puck protection ability fighting through pressure/a pin attempt to circle the zone and take the puck back up the boards. he then sends it down low and rotates to the front of the net, bodying a backchecker in the process and establishing position out front. he gets a nice tip on a shot attempt and fights off pressure/wins a puck battle against the aforementioned backchecker to get it back and again rotate up the boards with possession, this time carrying it to the blue line and making a solid point to point pass to his defender. yes, i know this was long, but i wanted to highlight the shift in its entirety because it was such a great application of his toolkit/ability. more of this