Florida Panthers WJC Preview: Kasper Puutio and Elliot Ekmark
With the NHL on hiatus until next Tuesday, hockey fans are eagerly awaiting the start of the 2022 Junior World Championships, which begin on Sunday in Edmonton and Red Deer, Alberta.
Florida Panthers prospectors Kasper Puutio and Elliot Ekmark will be included in the lists for Finland and Sweden respectively. Finland will play in Group A in Edmonton, while Sweden will be in Group B in Red Deer with the USA team, with Ty SMilanic and Mackie Samoskevich.
Kasper Puutio
The Cats drafted Puutio in the fifth round of the 2020 NHL Entry after the Finnish defender scored 28 points in 56 games in the Western Hockey League.
Puutio was selected by the Swift Current Broncos with the first team in the 2019 CHL import Draft. He played 35 games with Swift Current, where he scored his first WHL goal and added 15 assists, before switching to Everett Silvertips. Puutio scored four goals and eight assists in 21 games with SIlvertips and got +13 in grades, a marked improvement compared to -15 he made with the low Broncos. He was added to the list for the Kubota CHL / NHL Top Prospects Game as compensation.
A product of the Karpat system, Puutio returned to Finland and joined the club again after the rest of the WHL regular season 2019-2020 and the playoffs were lost to COVID-19. He scored two goals and added an assist and finished with -6 in 29 Liiga matches. He made a pointless appearance for Karpat during the Liiga post-season.
This season, the 19-year-old moved to KalPa Kuopio where he has scored six points (3G / 3A) in 27 Liiga matches.
Puutio will make his second WJC appearance. He played in last year’s tournament, along with fellow Cat prospector Anton Lundell, and collected two assists as he played in all of Finland’s seven matches and won a bronze medal.
Kasper Puutio scored his first two goals of the Liiga season, including the overtime winner, when KalPa beat the Pelicans 3-2 today. He was on the ice for all three goals KalPa scored and recorded five shot attempts in 16:02 TOI. #FlaPanthers pic.twitter.com/e4TqhNIpU4
– Finnish Jr Hockey (@FINjrhockey) September 18, 2021
Elliot Ekmark
The Panthers took a flyer on the small, game-creating center in the seventh round (198th overall) of the 2020 NHL Entry Draft after scoring 12 goals and 26 points in 31 games for Linköping’s club in the J20 SuperElit league and appeared in four pointless matches in the Swedish Hockey League during their draft season.
2020-21, Ekmark passed in 31 matches at the top level and scored his first goal in the SHL, his only point, and also played seven matches for the J20 squad where he excelled with two goals and ten points.
This season, Ekmark has scored a goal and an assist in 26 SHL matches for Linköping HC. He also scored a goal when he played three games at the J20 level.
Although this will be Ekmark’s first world championship for juniors, he was part of his country’s participation in the Hlinka Gretzky Cup 2019, where he scored a goal in five matches, and at the end of July he was part of the Swedish squad that participated in World Junior Summer Showcase in Plymouth, MI. Ekmark’s only point in the showcase was Sweden’s only goal in a 3-1 loss to USA Blue on 30 July.
While he has had trouble producing offensive in the SHL, he has shown the ability to be a much more dangerous player when playing against his teammates.