NEW YORK — When Urho Vaakanainen is playing to his strengths, perhaps the best comparable on the ice is an offensive lineman.
No, the 23-year-old defenseman doesn’t boast the same hefty frame (6-foot-2, 200 pounds) as, say, a Trent Brown. But when it comes to evaluating the Finnish product’s effectiveness in a game setting, the less you notice of him, the more he’s likely executing whatever task is in front of him.
Even when the Bruins selected him with the 18th overall pick in the 2017 NHL Draft, the guts of Vaakanainen’s game and his potential as a top-four stalwart at the next level revolved more around his poise with the puck and on-ice awareness, as opposed to game-breaking offensive talent or a punishing style of play.
“I think before Vaak got hurt, he was drafted to be a shutdown, good first-pass, shutdown guy with a good stick, good feet,” Bruce Cassidy said Wednesday following Boston’s practice at Chelsea Piers. “You hope maybe grows into his body, becomes more physical or what's needed at this level. We knew he wasn't gonna be a guy that's gonna throw some checks like Charlie McAvoy, but be able to win his battles. And he was starting to trend that way.”
Much like a fellow first-round draft pick in Jakub Zboril, it sure looked as though Vaakanainen had finally turned a corner in what was another go-around in the NHL ranks with Boston in 2021-22.
Previous stints with the B’s might have been marred by poor practice habits or a lack of assertiveness, but the young defenseman’s renewed emphasis on playing to his strengths allowed Vaakanainen to suddenly emerge as a pleasant surprise for a Boston blue line still searching for some stalwarts further down on the depth chart.
And even though it remains to be seen if Vaakanainen can truly flourish and live up to Boston’s initial projections of him as a true top-four anchor, the early returns this season have signaled that the young defender at least looks the part as an everyday NHLer.
And with Boston’s second and third D pairings still out of whack, Vaakanainen’s projected return on Thursday night against the Islanders does come at a good time for Cassidy and a coaching staff still looking to solve said defensive jigsaw puzzle.
Even though Vaakanainen’s offensive ceiling is lower than other defensemen currently situated on Boston’s roster like McAvoy, Mike Reilly and Matt Grzelcyk, the Bruins don’t need another offense-first dynamo on the blue line (even if they’ll gladly take Vaakanainen’s budding confidence with the puck on his stick).
Urho Vaakanainen breaks up an odd-man rush at one end and Taylor Hall wins it for the Bruins at the other: pic.twitter.com/EHqwMKHhOl
— Evan Marinofsky (@EvanMarinofsky) January 15, 2022
Rather, what Boston desperately needs is simple stability, which Vaakanainen has provided during a season in which he’s logged 20+ minutes in eight of his 13 appearances with the B’s.
As tempting as it might be to slot Vaakanainen next to McAvoy and roll with the tandem that Boston likely envisioned on draft night back in 2017, it looks as though Vaakanainen will return to the lineup on the B’s third D pair next to Derek Forbort.
After getting put on the shelf for more than two weeks due to a suspected concussion, getting placed in a defense-first pairing with a dearth of O-zone starts isn’t exactly the easiest way to ease Vaakanainan back into the lineup. But the very early returns between him and Forbort have been solid, with Boston outsourcing opponents, 1-0, in their 9:49 of ice time together.
Of course, given Brandon Carlo’s struggles this season, a poised puck-mover and defensively responsible partner in Vaakanainen does make plenty of sense as an in-house fix to steady that up-and-down second pairing. But it seems as though Cassidy is going to give Vaakanainen time to build his game back before slotting him further up the lineup.
“He was doing a good job making plays out of our zone, defending well, positionally solid, and then he got injured, “ Cassidy said. “So that was what we'd like. Because he's a guy that could slot up with a Charlie McAvoy and play against bigger guys and defend because he can pivot and close off plays. So we'll see. I'm not sure we're going to put him right back into that role, but it's something we had hoped for years ago and some of those guys take time.
“And so that's part of his game I've liked — a little more assertive with his puck play and better execution. Wasn't always on with his passes before. Now again, he didn't have a lot of time here. That's practices I'm going by — his string of games here, I thought he was much better in those areas.”
On a Bruins D corps that — while posting some sterling underlying metrics — also yet to find cohesion among its personnel, the continued development of a guy like Vaakanainen may not be as flashy of a move as, say, dealing for a Jakob Chychrun, of course.
But if Vaakanainen’s return and continued development help slow down the carousel of D-men slotting in and out of those second and third pairs, Cassidy and the Bruins will certainly welcome it.