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RW Lauri Pajuniemi - TPS Turku, Liiga (2018, 132nd, NYR)

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Pavel Buchnevich said:
He needs to start being one of the better players on his team, if he’s going to have much of a chance to reach the NHL. He’s going to be 20 years old near the start of the season in a pretty average league. I think this was a good upside pick, but he was underplayed last season. Does he figure to have a consistent top 9 role this season?
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I believe on that Pajuniemi will get bigger role in TPS now when Kakko is gone.
Kakko was the star in TPS last season so now it's Pajuniemi's turn.
 
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ChicagoBullsFan said:
I believe on that Pajuniemi will get bigger role in TPS now when Kakko is gone.
Kakko was the star in TPS last season so now it's Pajuniemi's turn.
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I’m honestly quite doubtful on him. He doesn't strike me at all as a real NHL potential talent. Kakko is absolutely many tiers above him as a talent, so I would be seriously surprised if Pajuniemi will be anything close to a star player in Liiga this season.

To be an NHL level talent from Europe you need to have at least one really special ability that will make you clearly better than an average NHL player in that area. Unfortunately I don’t see Pajuniemi having any abilities like that. I mean he is ok in most areas and even pretty good in some, but he isn’t really special in anything. A player like that could maybe after all become a good NHL player if he had very good hockey IQ, but unfortunately that isn’t exactly Pajuniemi’s strength.

I could of course be wrong, but at the moment I see him as maybe a top European league star at some point, if all goes well for him.
 
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Ippenator said:
I’m honestly quite doubtful on him. He doesn't strike me at all as a real NHL potential talent. Kakko is absolutely many tiers above him as a talent, so I would be seriously surprised if Pajuniemi will be anything close to a star player in Liiga this season.

To be an NHL level talent from Europe you need to have at least one really special ability that will make you clearly better than an average NHL player in that area. Unfortunately I don’t see Pajuniemi having any abilities like that. I mean he is ok in most areas and even pretty good in some, but he isn’t really special in anything. A player like that could maybe after all become a good NHL player if he had very good hockey IQ, but unfortunately that isn’t exactly Pajuniemi’s strength.

I could of course be wrong, but at the moment I see him as maybe a top European league star at some point, if all goes well for him.
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Agree, he doesn't really look like a player who will ever score all that much, even in Liiga. His feet always seem to be ahead of his head. You can see flashes of his skill but not on a consistent basis.
 
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Pavel Buchnevich said:
He needs to start being one of the better players on his team, if he’s going to have much of a chance to reach the NHL. He’s going to be 20 years old near the start of the season in a pretty average league. I think this was a good upside pick, but he was underplayed last season. Does he figure to have a consistent top 9 role this season?
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I don't really consider Liiga an average league. EBEL, NL, DEL are average leagues.
 
Pavel Buchnevich said:
Injured to start the season, but has started with two goals in his first three games.

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He is also getting an opportunity on the top line with Korpikoski and Wirtanen. Definitely liked his performance last night (up until the 3rd where the whole team completely collapsed) and that goal was just icing on the cake. Playing with Korpikoski should also help him rounding out his game. I'm still holding my horses on him though, I don't think he has showed all that much potential in the past despite of some flashes here and there. If he can do this consistently I will retract my words.
 
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He's stepping into a bigger role this season with Kakko gone. 6 goals and 1 assist in 13 games. It seems like the team doesn't score very many goals either this year, and he's one of their best forwards.
 
Finnish posters: out of sheer curiosity, is there a reason so many Finnish surnames contain Niemi? I know it comes from peninsula, just curious how that word spawned so many variations.
 
ProspectsSTC said:
Finnish posters: out of sheer curiosity, is there a reason so many Finnish surnames contain Niemi? I know it comes from peninsula, just curious how that word spawned so many variations.
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Surnames often come from place names, and place names are often just a "descriptive" word slapped on a geographical word, like Kotka (eagle) niemi (peninsula) or Savi (clay) lahti (bay). Another factor is of course that in Finnish you can form words like that, just putting substantives on top of each other.
 
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That 2nd goal by Pajuniemi was an absolute bomb. Looks like he is going to have the left circle on PP on lockdown in NHL.
 
Pavel Buchnevich said:
Why does he play such low minutes?
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Hard to say exactly.
But one significant fact is TPS fired their head coach Kalle Kaskinen some weeks ago.
And it looks new head coach Marko Virtanen not know so well how much Pajuniemi should play every game.

Virtanen has self said that he had problems to get known his team and players.
Other thing which can be also a factor is that TPS is bottom team in SM liiga this season.
Organizationally TPS Turku has been and is still a complete mess with lots of different problems.

And if history starts repeating it self
it's possible TPS will sell out all their best players before SM liiga transfer deadline expires.
 
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This guy has a rocket ship for a shot. Pretty one dimensional player unfortunately.
 
He's a pretty good skater. Defensive play seems to be a question mark, but who cares? If you can't play the offensive side of the game, you won't be a top 9 NHL'er. I haven't seen that much, but I've never heard or seen concerns about his hockey IQ, stick handling or playmaking. It seems to be a new phenomenon that he's more of a goal-scorer than playmaker. I've never seen anyone anywhere state this prior to this season where's he's scoring a lot of goals.
 
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