Tuomaala Named to AHL All-Star Classic
Rookie Forward to Join League’s Best Feb 4-5 in San Jose
January 10, 2024
Samu knows the way to San Jose!
The American Hockey League has announced that Phantoms right wing Samu Tuomaala has been selected to participate in the 2024 AHL All-Str Classic presented by Tech CU.
The event will take place in San Jose, California on Sunday, February 4 with the AHL All-Star Skills Competition and Monday, February 5 with the AHL All-Star Challenge. Tuomaala will represent the Lehigh Valley Phantoms on the Atlantic Division team in the four-team event.
Tuomaala, who just turned 21 on Monday, has thrived in his North American professional season with 10 goals and 17 assists for 27 points.
“That’s really nice,” Tuomaala said. “Nice thing for me to get selected from our team for All-Star Weekend. I’m excited to go.”
Tuomaala’s family was also thrilled to learn of the big news.
“They were pretty happy about that. Of course, right away I text them I got selected. So they are happy. Probably, they are watching that on TV in the middle of the night like all of our games. It’s great.”
The Oulu, Finland product is second on the Phantoms in goals and points. Among AHL rookies, Tuomaala is fourth in points (27) and tied for first among Eastern Conference rookies (with Joshua Roy of Laval). He is also third in assists (17) and sixth in goals (10) among AHL rookies and is also tied with Roy for first among Eastern Conference rookies in those categories.
The Flyers’ second-round selection in the 2021 NHL Draft also has scored five goals with eight assists on the power play rating him third in AHL rookie points and fourth in AHL rookie assists.
On Saturday, January 6, he recorded his first career multi-goal game including his second overtime goal of the season in a 4-3 win at the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins. Tuomaala also made Phantoms history as the first-ever Lehigh Valley forward to score two overtime goals in the same season. He is the fifth Lehigh Valley player overall to achieve the feat but the first four players who did it were all defensemen.
Lehigh Valley Phantoms Named to AHL All-Star Classic
2024 – Samu Tuomaala (San Jose, CA)
2023 – Ronnie Attard, Tyson Foerster, Cam York (Laval, PQ)
2020 – Morgan Frost (Ontario, CA)
2019 – Greg Carey, Colin McDonald (Springfield, MA)
2018 – T.J. Brennan, Danick Martel, Oskar Lindblom (Utica, NY)
2017 – T.J. Brennan, Taylor Leier, Jordan Weal (Allentown, PA)
2016 – Nick Cousins, Anthony Stolarz (Syracuse, NY)
2015 – Brandon Manning (Utica, NY)
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