Wild fan in peace here; followed Urho's career a bit here and there due to sharing a nationality. Weird, I know.
I think you guys might be positively surprised; he hasn't come to his own with Anaheim and certainly hasn't met those 1st round expectations, but I think you'll get a solid defenseman out of him yet. Injuries have slowed down his development but he can skate, he can shoot, and he's not a liability by any means. Will be interesting to see if he can prove worthy of a 3rd pairing spot. I'd imagine your management wants to at least see what they've got in him.
Our national broadcaster did an article on him in October, where he talks about what it's like to be an NHL player battling for a roster spot. It's titled "
Urho Vaakanainen was pegged for NHL superstardom - Then everything started going wrong".
Assuming y'all ain't fluent in Finnish (how dare, make Kaapo feel more welcome already), Google Translate seems to do an overall good job of it.
Now, some crucial info:
Because of how Finnish works, Urho's hometown of Joensuu (Rivermouth) can also be read as "Joe's Mouth". Make of that what you will.
"Urho" is a somewhat old-fashioned but well-known given name. It means "brave" in a collaqual sense; "New Yorkin Urhot" would be "The Braves of New York". His surname also literally translates to "Scalewoman" (Vaaka=scale, nainen=woman). I choose to have you believe that it's also the intended meaning of his name.
At 11 letters, "Vaakanainen" is the 2nd longest surname among Finns who have played for New York Rangers. Or will have, when he makes his debut. Seeing as Reijo Ruotsalainen leads that list and is also by far the leading points scorer among Ranger Finns, it bodes reasonably well.
I remember a minor scandal in Rovaniemi's Santa Claus Village (yeah, that's a thing and yes, it's as terrible as it sounds) because reindeer was on the menu. Why? Because they also featured "Santa's reindeer" as one of the attractions, in that you could go and see... live reindeer. And now the kids thought they put Rudolph on a plate.
www.atlasobscura.com
www.hockey-reference.com
www.nhl.com
