Feisty Ruohonen Honing his Skills
March 1, 2024
By Grant McCagg
I first noticed Heikki Ruohonen at the 2023 Hlinka. He played a decent game in the Fog Bowl versus the US. Centered one of Finland’s top two lines and scored a goal. He is featured this week in Recrutes Draftcast as the Mauler of the Week, and you will see why in the second video:
He is putting up good numbers in FIN Jr., tied for 15th on scoring with 19 goals and 45 points in 36 games. He recently had a seven-game scoring streak where he collected six goals and nine assists.
Here are his scoring plays from that recent point streak:
Here is a video featuring some of his more notable hits:
I can’t help but get a bit of a William Carrier vibe with this kid. Not the most skilled, definitely needs work on his explosiveness…but very strong, has some smarts and competes. He doesn’t lose many puck battles along the boards.
The speed and stickhandling simply aren’t there to be a skilled player at the NHL level. It will have to be a power game that he plays, and he looks to be a willing student. If I’m an NHL team interested in drafting him I am asking what his plans are for next season as he might be best suited for North American rinks.
If I’m a CHL team I gauge his interest in coming over next season. He is 6-1 and already 204 pounds, and doesn’t turn 18 until a week before the draft. He is likely going to have to transform his body a bit to be able to keep up with the NHL pace at center, and that will mean slimming down a bit and adding lean muscle as opposed to bulk but he is clearly above average in strength and hitting prowess.
There’s also a possibility that he ends up on the wing if he comes over to North America. He is strong along the boards and wins most of his puck battles. He would be effective cycling the puck on a bottom-six line come playoff time if he can improve his skating speed enough to keep up with the NHL pace. If he does become a winger, it will be a versatile one who can take situational faceoffs. He is above 52 percent in Finnish junior this season facing older opponents for the most part, and when he has played versus his peers in U18 events he has excelled. In the last Four Nations U18 tournament, he won 72 percent of his faceoffs.
Scouts are always saying that you need a special dimension to be drafted and Ruohonen’s special trait aside from being a bulldozer is his competitiveness. He has a good motor and, as you can see in this video, he loves to hit. He needs to keep improving his skill level but the fact that he has been a second-line center on Finland’s U18 team all season tells you that he’s got at least a bit of skill and pace, or he wouldn’t even be at those events. Add it all up and he’s a draft…it is just a question of where. My inclination is that he goes somewhere between the third round and the fifth. As is the case with a lot of European prospects, the U18s will be pivotal for him. If he produces and hits like he did in a lot of those highlights…my guess is that he’ll be drafted closer to 60 than to 150. We shall see.