2024 T25U25: Roni Hirvonen is #11

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Four years ago, over a mass zoom call that went on forever, the Maple Leafs traded their 44th overall pick for two other picks, the 59th and the 64th. This was a very slight overpay by strict pick-value calculations, but was essentially a fair trade with the Ottawa Senators. Topi Niemelä was taken with the later pick, and it's taken a long time to break apart the perceptions of these players into an understanding of two distinct individuals.

Roni Hirvonen	Vitals
Age as of July 1	22.47
Position	C
Height	5'10"
Weight (lbs)	178
Shoots	L
Draft Year	2020
Draft Number	59

Hirvonen was a popular selection at the time, with some draft watchers having him well above where he was picked, even into the first round. He is a classic Kyle Dubas draft pick, which somehow still means short to many people, but two inches don't make the man. What makes him a Dubas pick is that he's got good foundational skills in skating, puck handling and positioning and he's also smart about using those skills. Listed as a centre, he's played more on the wing, but that positional versatility is also the sort of thing the Leafs scouting staff under Dubas was interested in.

The Player

Even when a prospect isn't perpetually linked to someone else, there's two people we're talking about with every person on this list: who they are and who we expect them to be. When the expectations progress up the age curve faster than the reality, we get a player who starts to drop in the rankings.

Hirvonen was 11th in the winter 2020 T25 with six regularly rostered NHLers ahead of him. He was eighth and then seventh in the next two years as more players aged off the top. And then last year he fell to ninth without even Easton Cowan ahead of him. I think it is Cowan and Minten that are running up the ageing curve faster than Hirvonen and leaving people unsatisfied with his results this year.

The AHL is exactly where we should expect him to be, however; even Tyler Kleven, who every size-conscious fan knows by name (taken with the Leafs original pick in 2020) has only had a few games on a non-playoff team. The Leafs, meanwhile are the team that can't find a permanent spot for Nick Robertson. There's a reasonability gap in the expectations here where Hirvonen, who is having a normal progression, is getting negative buzz because he hasn't had an above average progression.

He is turning 23, though. And some of his draft cohort who needed more development time on deep teams are starting to filter into the NHL. If he's not very close this autumn, that reasonability gap will close.

Hirvonen's points have not been sparkly enough to get him the kind of strident overpraise that an AHLer gets when fans want to see him called up. He gets sympathy for the fact that he lost his father last summer, and then had a serious and frightening eye injury, but he is not wowing people with his points.

Last year was just his first AHL season, which came after over 200 games in the Liiga, and he played in 37 games. Because the Marlies weren't very good and had no viable goalies down the stretch, they lasted three games in the playoffs. But in those games Hirvonen did play, the goals and the assists weren't there very often, but his methods are clear here:

I said last year at this time that given his bereavement and his injury, I was pausing all expectations, and I don't see why I should change that view now. But it's not insupportable for people to look at his partial season and say that's a sign he isn't any longer on a normal projection for someone taken at his spot, he's actually performing below average.

It feels like we say this every year an awful lot, but when you're nearly 23, the jumps you can be expected to make are small. If we're writing off his previous season, then he's got two jumps to make this year and the stuff that can carry him to the NHL has to already be in there. He's not likely to bulk up much, and he isn't going to become a pure shooter in some alchemic development ritual. But as you saw in the video above he knows how to find the open man or to be the open man both. He creates offensive situations with good defensive work as well. Good plays happen around him. However, he is constantly knocked for a slow skating speed.

The Votes

For several reasons, when people began to split these two disparate players apart, they put Niemelä ahead of Hirvonen, some by a very large amount. I've gone the other way, and in due time I can tell you what I believe is the case about Niemelä, but I rate Hirvonen somewhat highly because he's got all the tools to play a valuable role as a forward. There's a lot more than just the scoring dimension to his game.

Any conversation about his rise or fall has to be done within the context of where he is on the ranking now, and that's below Fraser Minten, Easton Cowan, etc. etc. In other words, even I, with my highest ranking of seven, am putting others below him more than I'm putting him up higher. He's still a very big maybe to all of us in terms of future pro career heights. I'm less moved by the best case scenario of the younger prospects below Hirvonen than some voters tend to be and also of someone like Alex Steeves about to age out of the T25. I like Hirvonen's game, though. He's definitely not a top-six or bust kind of guy.

Voter	Vote
Cathy	7
Brian	18
Species	12
Adam	11
Hardev	12
dhammm	18
Cameron S	14
Hound Line	18
brysplace	12
Catch-67	12
Sclodiggity	12
shinson93	14
The Bag	10
Zone Entry	14
Weighted Average	13.14
Highest Vote	7
Lowest Vote	18

The Opinions

dhammm: Like Voit, Hirvonen's first season in the North American pro leagues was an uneven one in which injuries were a refrain. That he returned to the AHL at all deserves some adulation, but it also means that Hirvonen started and ended the season way behind. Onwards and upwards, I suppose.

shinson93: This guy just had a tough year all around.  Dealing with a concussion, death of his father and a severe eye injury.  I struggled to decide if those things were going to be limiting on him or if fighting through them showed character.  In the end it was kind of a pass to leave him about the same as last year.  I haven’t seen the Finnish captain I had high expectations for so far, but I’m hoping to see more of that this year as he gets back to his game.

Hound Line: I like his decision making but I'm skeptical of his physical upside. He's a small forward that lacks elite skill or skating ability and is more of a do no harm complimentary player in the AHL than someone consistently making positive plays. I see him as a cup of coffee 4th liner that heads back to Europe for a bigger payday.

Species: Hirvonen at #12 is the ranking I reconsider the most, largely because last year I had him at #9 and I'm not sure how I got him all the way down to #12 this year, even below Steeves, though it's probably the uncertainty from last season and I am higher on Steeves as a break out waiting to happen than everyone else. Maybe I should have flipped Steeves to #12 and Hirvonen to #10, but that wouldn't change much in the average rankings at all, so I guess this blurb is simply me rationalizing both of their rankings.

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Your turn to weigh in on a nearly forgotten prospect.

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