Those who witnessed it still speak with reverence about the time future Kraken winger Eeli Tolvanen compiled his historic, lone full season in the Russian-based Kontinental Hockey League at only 18 years of age.
Ryan Zapolski remembers a “shy, quiet” Tolvanen showing up in August 2017 to their KHL Jokerit squad in Helsinki, Finland, where the team’s average player age was 29 years, two months, to play in a league often considered the world’s second-best outside the NHL. In their first game in Moscow against Dynamo Minsk, Tolvanen notched a hat trick and an assist against goalie Jhonas Enroth, then only a season removed from his seven-year NHL career.
“And that’s a difficult league to score goals in,” said Zapolski, also a goalie, who started for Team USA at the 2018 Winter Olympics. “There aren’t many high-scoring games in that league. So, I mean, yeah. Guys were surprised. Guys knew his ability. But they didn’t think he’d be able to put it together that quickly.”
While some marvel at Finland native Tolvanen — claimed off waivers in December from the Nashville Predators — leading all Kraken players with 10 goals during the 24-game span since his Jan. 1 debut, anyone who saw his KHL season isn’t surprised. Tolvanen, now 23, was always somewhat of a prodigy from his days honing a quick-release shot in his family’s backyard rink to his two-season USHL junior hockey stint in Sioux City, Iowa, after heading there at 16 to learn English, U.S. culture and intricacies of smaller North American ice surfaces.
He has fond memories of his magical KHL season, mostly of older teammates looking out for him.
“Every mistake I made, they were all over me,” Tolvanen said. “But I loved it. That was one of the best times. An 18-year-old, you’re getting to play with men and travel a lot. That was exciting.”
Tolvanen would compile the greatest single-season points total by a KHL player younger than 20, surpassing the mark previously held by current Washington Capitals star Evgeny Kuznetsov. He tied for the team lead with 19 goals in 49 games and was second in points with 36 as Jokerit reached the second round of the playoffs before being eliminated by current New York Islanders netminder Ilya Sorokin and his CSKA Moscow squad.
“You saw it and figured it was just going to keep going on and on and that he’d be an elite goal scorer in the NHL,” Zapolski said. “I’m kind of surprised it didn’t happen for him in Nashville, but he’s also still very young.”
Count the Predators as surprised by recent events. After a Nashville promotion following that KHL season, Tolvanen scored just 24 goals over 128 games in parts of three NHL seasons.
Longtime Predators GM David Poile admits it was likely “a mistake” effectively giving up on Tolvanen by trying to sneak him through waivers to the AHL. Few believed Poile’s luck drafting Tolvanen 30th overall out of the USHL in 2017, right before his prospect rewrote the KHL’s teenage record books.
Tolvanen likely never would have gone to the KHL, nor Poile had a crack at him, if not for the admission’s office at Boston College. Tolvanen hoped to play there after two dominant USHL seasons for Sioux City, leading the Musketeers with 30 goals in 2016-17 and reaching the league final.
Boston College ruled right before the NHL draft that Tolvanen lacked enough high-school credits for admission. Though he’d taken classes in Sioux City, his previous credits from Finland weren’t counted equally.
“Coming from Finland, the school system doesn’t go hand-in-hand with the U.S.,” Tolvanen said. “They were telling me I had to stay another half-year in school and another season in the USHL. And I was coming up on the draft.”
Many believe Tolvanen would have been drafted much higher if not for uncertainty over where he’d play next. Tolvanen had known for months Boston College was unlikely to admit him and pondered alternatives.
Interestingly, his parents, Markku and Paivi, were teachers in Finland and his father is now the principal of a school there. They’d long preached academics to Tolvanen and his hockey-playing brothers, Joona and Atte.
Atte, who is five years older, began playing as a goalie at Northern Michigan University during Tolvanen’s first USHL season and loved his college experience. But Tolvanen didn’t want to spend another year in junior hockey awaiting college admission.
“That wasn’t for me,” he said. “I was thinking that for my next step as a hockey player, it was bigger and better to go play in the KHL.”
Tolvanen’s parents had moved overseas to Iowa his first USHL season. Though three hours away in Des Moines, they spoke daily by phone and often visited their somewhat lonely son and knew firsthand his hockey sacrifices. When the KHL option surfaced, both teachers fully supported him leaving school.
“It was the best decision I’ve ever made,” Tolvanen said. “I had a great year. I matured a lot as a kid going back to Finland. You play with the men, live by yourself. You have to do those things and mature quicker.”
Among those helping him were Jokerit’s general manager, Jari Kurri — best known as Wayne Gretzky’s star winger on the Edmonton Oilers of the 1980s. Tolvanen said Kurri took him “under his wing” as did his linemate, onetime New Jersey Devils forward Brian O’Neill, and teammate Peter Regin, who’d played 243 NHL games with Ottawa, Chicago and the Islanders.
Zapolski, who was 13 years older than Tolvanen that season, isn’t surprised to see his NHL fortunes turning.
“Just the confidence he had in his shot — it was elite back then and that was in bigger (European) rinks,” Zapolski said. “And I just figured when he got into those smaller rinks and tighter areas, his shot and release is so good that he’s going to score a lot of goals.”
Kraken coach Dave Hakstol feels Tolvanen is only just uncovering what he can be as an NHL player. Hakstol has him on the third line with Yanni Gourde and Oliver Bjorkstrand and on the power play,
“Sometimes, it’s just a change of scenery,” Hakstol said. “Sometimes, a new opportunity. There’s no magic formula as to what sparks a successful run like Tolvie has had here, the turnaround he’s had here.”
Tolvanen feels his goal-scoring abilities have always been there, surfacing that KHL season and revived through more consistent Kraken usage.
“I didn’t always get that in Nashville,” Tolvanen said. “Playing seven-to-10 minutes per night, it’s hard to go out there and produce. And then you’re switching linemates every other night, so you don’t feel that chemistry. It’s been nice to play with the same guys here and feel the chemistry start to build.”
And his reputation rebuild to what it had been as a boy that once took a men’s league by storm.