The season didn’t end the way that Jari Heikkinen, or any of the Quebec Citadelles would have wanted. Before the year started, there were lofty expectations for the rising, recent-expansion team. Those expectations waned after a rough start to the season that only really turned around near the midpoint, but for the players in the locker room, there was a real sense that they might just have the right pieces to make a run even from their unlikely position. Ultimately, that wasn’t to be: and while the team tries to develop and possibly add a piece or two to gear up for a more serious campaign next season, the next stop for many of the Citadelles is the SHL Entry Draft.
The players looking to be drafted this coming season are young goaltender Tyler Ward, playmaking winger Mikael Koskinen, scoring center Igor Petrov, and the aforementioned mobile defenceman Jari Heikkinen. Perhaps the main connective tissue between these players, despite their SMJHL loyalties, is that none of them have really been receiving a whole lot of hype from scouts: the Citadelles have happened upon a core of good young players, most of whom should project to be solid SHL players, but none of whom have attracted consistent attention as top five picks.
Heikkinen himself has been rumoured at anywhere from the eighth spot to, recently, into the ten to fifteen spot. At the same time, there is some internal discussion that he might be up for consideration earlier in the draft, though — as so often happens — this largely depends on if teams have their first or second choices taken ahead of them. If nothing else can be said, this draft is looking to be an unpredictable one: even the first overall pick is a source of speculation, and that often simply isn’t the case.
HEIKKINEN’S SEASON
If we’re going to talk about Heikkinen’s draft stock, then perhaps the first thing we need to look at is how he performed during he season. Single season metrics aren’t really the major determining factor for a drafting team, but they do provide an indication for where the player’s strengths lie, and thus impact a team’s decision vis-à-vis positional needs and tactical requirements. At a glance, Heikkinen’s season was actually pretty solid: he registered 20 points (7 goals, 13 assists) in a full 50-game season, while adding 18 takeaways. On the downside, he recorded a meager 31 hits and 23 shots blocked, spinning a tale of a defenceman who very much preferences a skill game. He seems at times to be reluctant, or perhaps just ill-equipped, to play the kind of hardnosed physical game that a lot of SHL teams increasingly look for in this new era.
If you were to flash back several seasons, that unwillingness to throw a hit would likely have been a point in his favour: that speaks to one of the wider trends in both the draft, and the SHL. As rules change and physical play becomes more feasible, without the specter of huge penalty minutes coming alongside it from officials eager to blow the whistle at the first sign of trouble, teams have felt more comfortable incorporating that style of game into their team. A player like Heikkinen went from looking like the safe option, to an option that might not be exhausting every available means on defense.
Certainly, there remain players like Raivo Helminen — whose 142 penalty minutes lead the league to go along with his 254 hits. But then there’s also a player like Panda Panico, who recorded just 4 penalty minutes along with 112 hits. It’s not a stretch to suggest that this new era has enabled physical play to rise to a point of prominence: in fact, the draft board is full of a more diverse range of players than would have been expected several seasons back. Heikkinen is, perhaps, an anachronism in this light: a player who seems to have emerged out of that old era, more than one who has adapted or taken advantage of this current era.
But, physical play is only one part of the equation, and it’s clear that elsewhere — Heikkinen’s game is pretty solid. Most of the other questions that linger over him have to do primarily with conditioning: while he’s shown very solid skating all-around, he hasn’t quite developed the cardio required for a top minutes defenceman. But for an SHL team going into the draft, that much will practically be an afterthought: to some extent, those kinds of things just have to be expected of a draftee.
If one aspect of his game could be pointed at as something to make him a dark-horse to be a much better player than is presently projected, it would probably be his takeaway rates. While only decent at this stage, it stands to reason that a defender of his nature, emphasizing skill and speed above physicality to an almost excessive degree, might come to focus more on his ability as a pickpocket: certainly, that much would aid him as a counter-attacker, something teams could certainly do with more of.
PROJECTIONS
So, where can we project Jari Heikkinen’s potential at? It’s hard to say, as it always is. He had a promising rookie outing and he’s shown that he has the right motivation to develop, at least at this very moment. Yet, he isn’t a player without risks: that’s perhaps the question that’s going to weigh most on managers considering drafting him. Is he a flash in the pan, a speedy defender whose game will dry up once he’s forced to cope with the transition to a more professional, SHL-level game, or is he really the blue-chip prospect he certainly wants to present himself as?
The answer to that should probably be ‘wait and see’. But the draft is tomorrow, and teams have to make decisions based on something. So for this individual, admittedly biased projection: Jari Heikkinen is not the best player in the draft. That much most people can agree upon. He probably doesn’t have the most potential in the draft. He is, as has been made clear by his wildly varying position in different teams’ eyes, a gamble. He has the strange honour of coming from a player agency with the known quality of producing unknown quantities who have ranged on rather sharp sides of the extreme: between first line talent, to complete busts.
HEIKKINEN’S PERSPECTIVE
Most teams have already completed their scouting, and those teams with an interest in drafting certain players have likely already reached out. But it’s worth tonight, on the eve of the draft, reflecting over what Heikkinen himself is hoping to come out of the draft. The most important topic this week has been, and rightfully so, what teams need and what teams are looking for. The draft is ultimately their game to play, and prospects have a responsibility to do their best for whichever team drafts them. To that end, Heikkinen has expressed that he is interested in playing for virtually any team: he doesn’t have any significant grudges to speak of, nor does he have heavy preferences between those teams that exist.
Not publicly, anyways.
It might be suspected that a player coming from an agency like Heikkinen’s might have certain biases in approaching teams, but the best inside information we can provide is that there is only a single team that he has expressed active disinterest in playing for. However, even in that case, he has expressed that he will do his utmost to fulfill his contractual obligations and give the team a real shot to change his mind. However, given that team has not reached out, his chances of being selected there are likely rather low.
THE OTHER CITADELLES
Obviously, this article has been largely an exercise in self-indulgence. But there are three other members of the Quebec Citadelles who are heading into the draft who deserve to be mentioned further here, given they were discussed earlier in the article. Those are Igor Petrov, Mikael Koskinen, and Tyler Ward. No doubt these are all players that have also registered a fair amount of attention in their own right, but given how deep the draft is, there’s a chance that some of them may fall down the board themselves.
Rather than go into depth about each player to try to hype them up, I would end this with a word of advice which no doubt most general managers have already taken to heart: but which might be useful to less experienced members, as well. When evaluating some of these players, especially in the case of individuals like Ward and Koskinen, you should always take into account when they began training for the SMJHL — and not just where they are currently in their development.
A simple glance at someone’s current experience level will tend to obfuscate their real value as a draft pick, when comparing players who joined the league at varying points in time. It has happened many times before, and it will happen in this draft again: players who haven’t had as much time to train, but who have been consistent, will find themselves widely underrated. Some of those players will go on to be what can only be described as the obvious steals of the draft.
Similarly — and not to undercut Heikkinen’s own value — sometimes a productive first season can conceal a bust in waiting. There are a few very prominent examples of it, but sometimes an unusual extent of over-activity can be as much of a warning sign about a player’s possible future as a quiet board presence might be. But it’s never certain. After all, drafts are more art than science.
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