Penguins Prospect Watch: Valtteri Puustinen moves up among Liiga goal-scoring leaders
A weekly look at how Penguins prospects and minor leaguers have fared over the past seven days:
• In Finland’s Liiga, forward Valtteri Puustinen scored on a power-play goal for HPK in a 5-2 road win against JYP on Thursday.
He followed that up Saturday by scoring two goals, including one on a penalty shot and another on a two-on-none rush during a four-on-four sequence, as HPK defeated Karpat, 4-0.
With 19 goals in 42 games, Puustinen is the Liiga’s third-leading goal-scorer this season. A seventh-round pick in 2019 (No. 203 overall), Puustinen, 21, has yet to sign with the Penguins.
• Elsewhere in the Liiga, forward Kasper Bjorkqvist had the primary assist on the opening goal for KooKoo in a 4-3 home loss to Tappara on Wednesday. That was Bjorkqvist’s first point in the Liiga since Feb. 6.
The 23-year-old Bjorkqvist, a second-round pick (No. 61 overall) in 2016, is in the second year of a two-year entry-level contract with the Penguins.
• Also in the Liiga, defenseman Niclas Almari had an assist on a game-tying goal late in regulation for Pelicans in a comeback 4-3 road shootout win against KalPa on Saturday.
Almari, 22, was a fifth-round pick (No. 151 overall) in 2016 and is in the second year of a three-year entry-level contract with the Penguins.
• In Finland’s second-tier Mestis, goaltender Joel Blomqvist got his first win in that league since Nov. 28. On Wednesday, Blomqvist made 24 saves on 26 shots to direct Hermes to a 5-2 road win against Hokki.
Blomqvist, 19, was a second-round draft pick (No. 52 overall) in 2020 and has yet to sign with the Penguins.
• In the American Hockey League (AHL), forward Drew O’Connor had two assists for the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins in a 4-3 home overtime loss to the rival Lehigh Valley Phantoms on March 8.
An undrafted free agent signed in March of 2020, O’Connor, 22, is in the first year of a two-year entry-level contract with the Penguins.
• On Saturday, goaltender Emil Larmi made 19 saves on 22 shots for Wilkes-Barre/Scranton in a 3-0 road loss to the Syracuse Crunch.
The undrafted Larmi, 24, is in the second year of a two-year entry-level contract with the Penguins.
• In the ECHL, goaltender Alex D’Orio recorded his first career shutout at the professional level, by making 27 saves for the Wheeling Nailers in a 6-0 home win against the Indy Fuel on Tuesday.
Undrafted, D’Orio, 21, is in the second year of a three-year entry-level contract.
• In the Western Hockey League (WHL), forward Lukas Svejkovsky recorded the primary assist on a game-winning power-play goal for the Medicine Hat Tigers in a 6-2 road win against the Calgary Hitmen on Friday.
Svejkovsky suffered an undisclosed injury in that game and was sidelined for his team’s next two contests.
A fourth-round pick (No. 108 overall) in 2020, Svejkovsky, 19, and has yet to sign with the Penguins.
• In the NCAA, defenseman Clayton Phillips missed Penn State’s opening postseason game, a 6-3 road win against Notre Dame, in the Big Ten quarterfinal round due to an undisclosed injury.
A third-round pick (No. 93 overall) in 2017, Phillips, 21, has yet to sign with the Penguins.
• Elsewhere in the NCAA, forward Chase Yoder had an assist for Providence in a 6-1 defeat of Connecticut during a Hockey East quarterfinal round matchup.
Yoder, 18, was a sixth-round pick (No. 170 overall) in 2020 and has yet to sign with the Penguins.
• In Sweden’s second-tier HockeyAllsvensken, goaltender Calle Clang’s regular season in that league came to an end as he made 38 saves on 40 shots for Kristianstads in a 2-1 road loss to Bjorkloven on Wednesday.
At 8-34-5, Kristianstads was the worst team in the HockeyAllevensken this season and missed the playoffs. Clang, 18, was the Penguins’ third-round draft pick (No. 77 overall) in 2020 and has yet to sign with the team.
• Forward Pontus Aberg’s season in Russia’s Kontinental Hockey League (KHL) came to an end after his team, Traktor Chelyabinsk, was eliminated from the first round of the Gagarin Cup playoffs by Salavat Yulaev, 4-1. Aberg failed to score a point in five postseason games.
Aberg, 27, is an unsigned restricted free agent whose rights the Penguins acquired from the Maple Leafs in an August trade.
Statistics
(Players currently on the NHL roster and taxi squad are excluded.)
Forwards and defensemen
*-Current team
(All figures are through Sunday.)
Seth Rorabaugh is a TribLive reporter covering the Pittsburgh Penguins. A North Huntingdon native, he joined the Trib in 2019 and has covered the Penguins since 2007. He can be reached at srorabaugh@triblive.com.
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