![]() “Spending time with the team and coaches and everybody, just being around the guys to get to know them, it’s a big part to becoming a player,” he said. But, as he says, he’s only 22 years old and feels he belongs in the NHL.Īfter six weeks in the Edmonton bubble, he also feels like part of the Canucks. With a nuanced, understated game, Juolevi may never do enough to justify his draft position. Juolevi is never making up that deficit on Tkachuk. Power forward Matthew Tkachuk, Juolevi’s junior teammate whom the Canucks allowed to go sixth to the Calgary Flames, has already played 293 NHL games. It was a really good experience.”Įven with his playoff cameo, Juolevi remains the only player from the first 17 picks of the 2016 draft who hasn’t logged a regular-season game in the NHL. But I always believed and knew that I was good enough to play there, and when I got the chance I would show it. It was a little different for me that my first game came in the bubble. “I think there’s a lot of guys that dream to play in the NHL. And of course, I’d been waiting for that for a long time. “There wasn’t too much time to be nervous or anything like that. “I only knew after the warmups that I was in that night,” Juolevi recalled. When third-pairing defenceman Oscar Fantenberg was unable to play against Minnesota, coach Travis Green went with Juolevi.įantenberg is now in the Kontinental Hockey League. The COVID-19 pause last spring allowed Juolevi to further heal and fully train, and he was excellent at the Canucks’ summer camp, playing his way on to the expanded playoff roster. He had 25 points in 45 games and added defensive duties, including the penalty kill. But Juolevi was off to an excellent start in the American Hockey League as a 20-year-old until his 2018-19 season ended after just 18 games with a knee injury that required two operations.ĭespite a month-long shutdown in the middle of last season due to ongoing soreness in his hip – possibly a byproduct of his knee injury – Juolevi had a productive development year with the Comets. Juolevi spent his draft-plus-one season with the London Knights in junior before playing as a 19-year-old with TPS Turku in Finland, where he had 19 points in 38 games and was one of Liiga’s top rookies. I think my pucks skills and my hockey IQ has always been there, and now you add that defensive side of the game, it’s going to be really good.” I think I’m really close to the player I always thought I could be. “Just the way I can play a defensive game now, it’s a huge difference (from four years ago). Now, when you’re healthy, it feels great that you can focus on getting better. “It’s always been more rehabbing and trying to get healthy than actually working out and getting better. Even this past year in Utica, the team and how we played, it was really good for me. “But I feel every time I’ve played and I’ve been healthy, I’ve played good hockey. “For sure, it’s difficult times when you’re injured,” Juolevi said. General manager Jim Benning has said numerous times that Juolevi is ready for the next step. OK, so maybe, that performance didn’t merit a five-part deep dive.īut he’s going to get a lot more attention if the NHL opens another season in January because even before the exodus of players from Vancouver in free agency, Juolevi was pencilled in as the Canucks' third left-side defenceman. Juolevi logged six minutes and 16 seconds, killed one penalty, wasn’t involved in any goals and helped keep the Wild shot-less while he was on the ice. The Stanley Cup playoff bubble last summer and its lack of media access meant there wasn’t much written about Juolevi’s long-awaited NHL debut in a series-clinching win against the Minnesota Wild on Aug. It’s a long time, but I’m still only 22 years old.” You just work your ass off and make every day your best day. “There’s always something you can do for yourself. “When you think how things were four years ago, that feels like ages ago,” Juolevi said in an interview from Helsinki. Now fully fit, he’s finally able to focus on getting better.ĭoes this mean the defenceman the Vancouver Canucks chose fifth overall in 2016 – ahead of more dynamic blue-liners Mikhail Sergachev (ninth) and Charlie McAvoy (14th) – is ready to become a National Hockey League regular? Not necessarily. ![]() Juolevi spent the last two off-seasons trying to get healthy. VANCOUVER – The last time Olli Juolevi felt this healthy was 2½ years ago, before he injured his back training for the transition to professional hockey in North America.Īfter that, there was a significant knee injury with the AHL's Utica Comets - and two more surgeries.
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