The Player’s Profile: Lassi Suhonen



From Season 56 to Season 57, Lassi has a lot to prove, but did he show up to camp ready to perform at the highest level?

In Season 56, Newfoundland’s Lassi Suhonen was part of an offensive unit that put up impressive numbers though out the regular season and ran deep into the playoffs losing to the eventual championship Vancouver Whalers. Suhonen averaged just over sixteen and a half minutes a game during seasons 56. Newfoundland’s coaching staff is known for mixing up its line combinations quite a bit and perhaps that lead to Suhonen building chemistry with a number of his teammates during the Berserkers run to the finals. Suhonen finished the S56 regular season with 30 points and played an integral part of the Berserker PK unit averaging more than two and a half minutes per game on the kill.

However, early this season, many of Newfoundland’s local hockey reporters have been critical of Suhonen’s fitness level when he returned to camp for Season 57. The Finnish sensation has been strong out of the gates this season with a strong stat line, pulling together four assists and a single goal for five points through six contests. Suhonen’s average TOI through six matchups is below his average from last year, at 15:52 per night. Yet still, with his average TOI per game down from last year’s total Suhonen is struggling to maintain his fitness. In fact, during the Berserker’s last string of games, the Newfoundland Berserker’s coaching staff had to make some tough line adjustments due to Suhonen’s ability to keep up. Following the team’s most recent game with Kelowna, Suhonen’s fitness level was recorded around 29% by league experts. Notably, the other centers in the Newfoundland organization haven’t had much trouble out of camp; each all maintaining an 85% or higher fitness level following the team’s latest contest.

It is an incredibly tough place for the Newfoundland coaching staff to be in. On the one hand, Suhonen is one of the SMJHL’s premier centers when he is healthy and up-to-par with his endurance. But at the moment, his inability to recover game to game in a league where teams are frequently asked to play back to back nights is a serious problem. Newfoundland should certainly hope that Suhonen finds his fitness as the season progresses. As it stands without Lassi’s leadership, the Newfoundland roster is fairly young and will lean on Charlesworth, Kickz and Rose in the dot. And while all three rookies have shown a great deal of promise during the pre-season and the first week of regular season action, they cannot fill the shoes of a veteran like Suhonen come playoff time.

The Newfoundland Berserker’s are off to a relatively slow start with a record of two wins and four losses through their first six contests. The Four Star Cup runner’s up find themselves fourth in the standing after the first week. Newfoundland hopes that its S58 leading eight draft picks will find their sea legs and lead the team to a strong second half of the season and another strong push to the playoffs.

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