Bruins sign defenseman Urho Vaakanainen to entry-level deal

Urho Vaakanainen signed a three-year entry level deal with the Bruins, which means the 19-year-old defenseman will be at training camp in the fall.

Vaakanainen was drafted No. 18 overall last season and played overseas in Finland – his third season in the top-tier Liiga league.

The next step in his development will be adjusting to the North American style of hockey, which means finding his way on a more narrow sheet of ice during a more physical style of play.

The entry-level deal will pay Vaakanainen, who’s 6-foot-1, 185 pounds, an annual cap hit of $925,000, plus bonuses. Since the end of the season, and most recently at the NHL Scouting Combine, Bruins general manager Don Sweeney expressed a desire to sign Vaakanainen and the team finally reached an agreement.

"I’m really excited just to get to the camp and show how good I am and try to be at my best
every day and just have fun and enjoy," Vaakanainen said via the Bruins. "You don’t get these opportunities...doesn’t happen to every guy, so you just have to try to enjoy it and be at your best when you come to the camp."

One of the Bruins deficiencies in the playoffs came at the blue line, where the Maple Leafs and Lightning hit the Bruins hard with secondary scoring. The top pairing of Zdeno Chara and Charlie McAvoy played well against team’s top lines, but after that was when it got tough.

It didn’t help that Brandon Carlo was injured again before the playoffs, which forced the Bruins to shuffle the pairings. Torey Krug and Kevan Miller struggled and allowed 10 even-strength goals during the two playoff series.

The big question is whether the Bruins are satisfied with deploying 5-foot-9 defenders Krug and Matt Grzelcyk as their second and third left-shot defensemen in favor for a more gritty, defensive approach.

They could opt to make this move via free agency, which begins July 1, or via the trade market.

They also may find the answer in their own system, where Jakub Zboril, Jeremy Lauzon, and Vaakanainen could all make a legitimate push for playing time once camp starts. All three are left-shot defenseman who could earn their way up the personnel ladder in September.

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This year’s training camp will be interesting for the fact alone that it is Vaakanainen’s first real exposure with the Bruins.

“[Vaakanainen’s] a smooth-defenseman who’s gonna move the puck for you,” Providence Bruins coach Jay Leach said in a phone interview. “He plays a solid defensive game, but I really can’t say much more about him just because we haven’t had a lot of exposure.”

There’s no doubt the Bruins like Vaakanainen’s game or else they wouldn’t have taken him where they did in the first round last year. Whether he can transition smoothly will dictate his next steps and a lot of that remains unseen at the moment.

"Well, I have to get a bit stronger and just overall better in everything," Vaakanainen said. "Have to work on my shot a lot this summer and just playing on the offensive blue line getting shots to the net through the traffic. That’s probably the biggest thing that I have to improve."

We detailed a look at some of the Bruins top prospects earlier this week, which included a look at Zboril. The 6 foot, 201-pound defenseman is another smooth skater who’s made big strides since the team drafted him in 2015. He was able to play more once Rob O’Gara and Grzelcyk were out of Providence, and he really shined in the playoffs for Providence.

“He’s got a bit of a nasty streak in him, and that came out as the season progressed,” Leach said of Zboril.

Lauzon, meanwhile, has generated a lot of excitement for the organization since he was drafted in 2015.

He’s a big body – 6-3 and 201 pounds – but only played 52 games in Providence after a head injury sidelined him for a chunk of the season. Lauzon has a real physical edge to his game and makes the game tough for his opponents, but that high-intensity style was part of the reason he was set back after he was injured last season.

“It was hard,” Leach said, as the season progressed in March and April, he found a rhythm again. But he’s got a lot more to give.”

According to Leach, it can be hard for young players to pick up the pro game, especially on defense where snap decisions need to be made. Often times the quick decisions that need to be made on breakout plays are the ones that can be troublesome for a young player. When the speed of the game is quicker, sometimes that leads to more scrambled play which forces a player to act on their instincts quickly.

Come September, Vaakanainen and others will have the chance to showcase their ready to meet that challenge.