Photo: Future Scope Hockey
Player Overview
Team: Karpat (Liiga)
Position: Defence
Height: 6’0”
Weight: 163 lbs
Introduction
Niemela spent all of his draft year playing in Finland’s top pro league for one of the best teams. While his offensive production doesn’t jump off the page (1 goal, 6 assists in 43 games), simply earning a full-time spot in Finland’s top circuit as a 17 year old is quite impressive. He also had impressive showings for Team Finland at both the Hlinka Gretzky tournament and the Five Nations tournament. In Bob McKenzie’s panel of NHL scouts, Niemela came in 38th. This is in line with where other major scouting services have him ranked, as he’s 34th and 42nd by Future Considerations and McKeen’s, respectively.
Also, a big thanks goes out to our partners at InStat for providing all the clips you’ll see in this piece.
Skating
Niemela’s edgework is far and away the best aspect of his skating. His lateral movements look effortless, almost like he’s a ballerina on ice. When he gets on his edges it can almost look like he’s floating on the ice.
His straight-line speed isn’t anything super special. When playing against his peers at the international level it looked slightly above average, but it was when he was with Karpat going toe-to-toe with grown men that the need for improvement became noticeable. If he makes a mistake and has to backcheck heavy, he can’t quite get back and recover with his speed as it is right now.
He also isn’t going to be relied on to skate the puck up the ice himself. He’s certainly capable of doing it when he has the space, but he doesn’t quite have that top gear to his skating right now that will allow him to weave through traffic and enter the zone.
But remember, this is a 17-year-old playing professional hockey so he’s bound to look a bit behind. His stride itself doesn’t appear very powerful. Given he’s listed at 163 lbs., he has room to bulk up his legs in the next few years to become more explosive in his skating. He did look much, much better skating the puck up the ice when playing at the international level against his peers.
While Niemela’s backwards skating isn’t anything special, he does a good job of maintaining his gap regardless of the speed the attacking player is coming towards him at.
He times his pivots very well to not allow puck carriers to get by him. See here how he moves perfectly with the attacker while maintaining the gap, forcing him to get rid of the puck.
There were a lot of times I saw Niemela in transition let the attacker come at him so he can step up and shut it down. He does a very good job of picking his spots to do this, as he doesn’t let this beat him.
There are some blips here, however. Every now and then he’ll be a bit too aggressive with his gap and will get blown by.
This didn’t happen all that often, but it can be extremely costly when it does. The clip above caused Niemela to be benched for a few shifts afterwards. As he gets older and more experienced, this is something that should be worked out of his game.
For someone with such amazing edgework, I was underwhelmed with Niemela’s agility. I found that often times he’d get beat cleanly in cycles by the puck carrier slamming on the breaks and changing direction.
Overall, Niemela’s skating is fine right now. When playing against some of his peers at the Five Nations tournament, he looked like an above average skater in all four directions. When he was playing for his club team in Finland, he looked a half-step behind a lot of the time. I’m hoping that this was just due to him being so young and not fully developed physically, so I wouldn’t be concerned. As time comes, he should be a more than competent skater at the NHL level.
Passing
This is an area where Niemela really shines. He’s an extremely efficient passer and doesn’t often try to force plays that aren’t there. As a defenseman he isn’t going to be making any sort of highlight reel passes, but he makes smart reads to effectively move the puck up the ice.
His first pass is very good, especially when given the opportunity to really stretch the ice.
He’s also very quick to recognize when the stretch pass is available. Notice how as soon as he gets the puck, he looks up and then delivers a crisp pass right to the tape through the neutral zone.
He clearly sees the ice well and is able to anticipate his breakout options. In the clip below, he’s able to get the puck to the right guy even when the obvious passing lane isn’t there.
Niemela is also a very efficient passer when set up in the offensive zone. He makes the simple play most of the time but is also capable of threading the needle to go cross-ice.
His smart, well rounded passing game will help his team in a lot of different ways. Even if he won’t be the guy to skate the puck into the offensive zone a ton, he’s more than capable of finding a teammate on the breakout and can make smart plays with the puck offensively.
Shot
Niemela’s shot isn’t anything special. He scored two goals this season, one in Liiga and the other in a Champions League game. His lone Liiga goal displayed his smart offensive game as he notices the breakdown in coverage and jumps at the opportunity.
His other goal was just a nice shot that beat the goaltender clean. This is something that ideally he could bring out a bit more, but it’s not going to make a drastic difference based on his play style.
His shot from the point could use some work. He doesn’t get the shot through all that often and it isn’t particularly powerful, so there’s some work to be done for sure. Having a really good shot isn’t going to be crucial to his game, but definitely would be a nice tool to have.
The accuracy is definitely going to need some improvement. It was quite often that Niemela would send shots way wide of the net, regardless of whether he was trying to get it on net or looking for a deflection.
I found that Niemela wasn’t always taking the ice his opponents gave him. Just look at how much space there is here for Niemela to attack, but instead he takes a weak slapshot from far out.
A few subtle improvements to Niemela’s shot could make a big difference when he’s on the ice. Again, it’s not a huge issue since he won’t be a big-time goal scorer from the backend but being able to contribute more offensively will go a long way in the modern NHL.
Physicality
Given Niemela is listed at only 163 lbs., the physical game should be a weakness of his. I was pleasantly surprised to find out he’s a pretty effective checker while defending.
In the clip below, we see that Niemela doesn’t have the angle to win the puck battle. But he’s able to get himself in a spot to deliver a hard, clean check and not let the opposition continue the cycle.
He also does a very good job of timing when he should step up and play the body in the neutral zone.
Just from watching his game, it looks like his upper body is a fair amount stronger than his lower body. This is an encouraging sign to me because most of his physical development should be in his legs, so the skating should improve a lot over the next year or two. Seeing a strong physical game out of a 17-year-old playing professional hockey isn’t something you see every day, which is quite a good sign.
Defending
Niemela doesn’t do a lot wrong when he’s defending in the defensive zone or in transition. He keeps his gaps well, he knows when to be aggressive and challenge the puck carrier and does a great job of closing plays down.
He doesn’t quit on plays defensively either. Niemela will always retreat to the middle of the ice and assess the situation again.
For a defenseman, there really isn’t a lot to say about his ability to defend. Simply put, he does what he has to do while defending in transition or shutting down cycles just about every time.
Decision Making
This is the area where the warts come in. A lot of his decision-making issues seem to stem from a lack of confidence. At times it looks like he’s indecisive on whether he should pinch at the blue-line or begin skating backwards, and it can easily cost his team.
He also panics with the puck a bit in his own zone. One of the first things a youth hockey coach will engrave in a player’s brain is to never ever go up the middle when clearing the puck. Usually when a player does this, it’s because they panic with the puck and just want it off their stick out of fear it’ll get taken from them.
In the clip above, Niemela blindly threw the puck right into the slot and got lucky the opponent fanned on the shot he teed up. While there was a player jockeying for the puck with him, he still could’ve taken a stride or two to give him enough time to look up and assess the situation.
This next clip is just bad all around. Niemela makes a careless turnover in his own zone, and then when he gets it back, he sends a weak clearing attempt off the boards that gets picked off.
And then in the offensive zone, he struggles on deciding what to do with the puck if there’s no clear option available. Although his teammates didn’t really do anything to help him out on this play, Niemela should’ve recognized that he had no options and dumped the puck behind the goal line. Instead, it’s a turnover and the play is going the other way quickly.
This was one of the few mistakes I saw he made in transition. I really, really don’t know what was going through his head on this one, but at least this was a one-time thing.
There were far too many plays like these that I saw while watching him while he was playing in Liiga. Niemela looks very indecisive and lacking self confidence in a lot of these mistakes. But when he’s playing with confidence, there really aren’t a lot of these issues (except for the missed hit above).
Notice here how he baits the defender into playing the D-to-D pass, only for him to cut up the ice as soon as the forechecker commits.
He was especially confident when playing against his peers at the international level. While he looked very indecisive on when to pinch playing in Finland, he looks extremely confident and commits right away to his decision.
As a player, if you hesitate and second-guess any decision you make, you’ve messed up. When Niemela quickly makes a decision and commits to it, he looks extremely good. It’s when he’s in between decisions that he gets burned and hurts his team. This absolutely has to be fixed as he develops for him to make it in the NHL.
Rankings
#27 – Recruit Scouting
#42 – McKeen’s Hockey
#8 – NHL Central Scouting (European Skaters)
#40 -Eliteprospects.com
#38 – TSN/McKenzie
Conclusion
When watching Niemela’s play at the Five Nations tournament, there’s a lot to like. The skating, the decision making, the physicality, it all screams top-four NHL defenseman. Watching him play in Liiga you see a lot of those same traits, but a lot of turnovers and indecisiveness that isn’t there when playing against his peers. When evaluating him, I had to continue reminding myself of how young he is playing against men, and that a lot of these issues can easily be fixed as he develops more and becomes more confident at that level.
He’s a player that certainly would’ve benefited from having the U18 tournament this year to improve his draft stock. He’ll still get first round consideration come draft day, and he’s in my personal top-31. In a draft that’s relatively weak on defense, Niemela makes a lot of sense for any team looking for the top-four, right-shot defenseman that’s so coveted in the NHL.