2023-24 Season in Review: Valtteri Puustinen

Valtteri Puustinen has clawed his way from a seventh-round throwaway to NHL contributor.

Vitals

Player: Valtteri Puustinen
Born: June 4, 1999 (24 years old)
Height: 5-foot-9
Weight: 183 pounds
Hometown: Kuopio, Finland
Shoots: Right
Draft: 2019 7th round (203rd pick) by Pittsburgh Penguins
2023-24 Statistics (NHL): 52 games played, five goals, 15 assists, 20 points
Contract Status: Entering the first year of a two-year contract signed on May 10, 2024. The contract carries an average annual value of $775,000 at the NHL level.

Monthly Splits

Story of the Season

Valtteri Puustinen came into the 2023-24 season on the fringe of the NHL roster. His success at the AHL level meant that he was all but guaranteed to see NHL action at some point during the campaign as an injury or depth replacement, and that’s what happened.

Starting the season in Wilkes-Barre, Puustinen played 24 games for the baby Penguins, scoring five goals and eight assists down on the farm. In 169 games at the AHL level, Puustinen has scored 49 goals and 65 assists for 119 points. His progression and penchant for offense from the Finnish leagues to the NHL is why he’s become one of the Penguins’ better prospects in a shallow prospect cupboard. Not too bad for a seventh-round pick.

The forward led all Penguins rookies with five goals and 20 points in 52 games. Puustinen has registered 21 points (five goals, 16 assists) and a plus-6 in 53 career NHL games.

Puustinen regularly saw action on the second or third lines this season and was given time to utilize his offensive prowess on the power play.

When Puustinen was recalled in December, he came flying out of the gate, one of the lone bright spots in an otherwise dreadfully bland bottom-six unit.

Things would cool off for the young winger until he found confidence in his game once again by the time March rolled around.

Regular season 5v5 advanced stats

Data via Natural Stat Trick. The ranking is out of 17 forwards on the team who qualified by playing a minimum of 150 minutes.

Corsi For%: 52.10 (7th)
Goals For%: 56.82 (2nd)
xGF%: 55.11 (4th)
Scoring Chance %: 54.45 (3rd)
High Danger Scoring Chance%: 57.78 (1st)
5v5 on-ice shooting%: 9.33 (6th)
On-ice save%: 91.81 (8th)
Goals/60: 0.5
Assist/60: 1.5
Points/60: 2.0

Puustinen’s advanced metrics were routinely alongside regulars such as Sidney Crosby, Bryan Rust, Jake Guentzel and other high-impact forwards.

Not only did his preceding reputation as an offensively gifted winger make him a more intriguing prospect, but his ability to drive possession and create high-danger scoring chances consistently, at least through this sample size, shows that Puustinen can handle himself at the NHL level.

Charts n’at - Via HockeyViz and JFresh Hockey

Interestingly, Puustinen never saw any quantifiable time on the penalty kill, mostly deployed at even strength or a rare power-play appearance.

Largely anchored by Lars Eller on the third line, Puustinen also saw chunks of ice time with Reilly Smith and Evgeni Malkin.

With Puustinen on the ice at 5v5, the team operates at a positive, as evidenced by the darker shade of red in the illustration below. With Puustinen not on the ice in 5v5 situations, (the much larger sample size here), the Penguins did see a notable difference in expected goals for/60 minutes.

The thing to take away from here is that Puustinen and his teammates weren’t a complete disaster when trying to generate offense.

The expected goals against/60 minutes seemed to fall with Puustinen on the ice in the defensive zone compared to the 5v5 defense when he was not on the ice.

JFresh’s player card here paints a rather impressive picture of a player who got more than a one-game cup of coffee with the big club.

You would like to see the finishing improve, but that same sentence could be said for this entire team over the last two or three seasons.

The Penguins could find themselves with a solid defensive player at even-strength who can have an offensive flair at the game’s highest level. Not a game-breaker by any stretch of the imagination, but for a seventh-rounder on a team with a laughably weak pool of prospects? You take that every day of the week.

Highlights

Questions to ponder

Is there more offense to be had for the Finnish forward at the NHL level? He has dominated at every level of professional hockey; can he take that proverbial and cliche “next step” in 2024-25?

Ideal 2024-25

I’m sure the coaches are looking for more consistency from Puustinen. He has an NHL-caliber skill set, but can that be harnessed over an 82-game NHL schedule? Puustinen strikes me as one of those players that the coaches want to see ‘shoot more.’ Use the tools that got him to the dance. He wasn’t put on the power-play last season by accident.

What would you consider a successful 2024-25 for Puustinen? Is it reasonable to expect a 30-40-point season next year? It’s not out of the question.

Bottom line

Puustinen’s prolonged taste of NHL action surely motivates the young player to build on and surpass his statistics set last year. Throw in a new, two-year deal from Kyle Dubas, and the 2024-25 campaign could be one to watch. We know the bottom six is set for more turnover this off-season, but the soon-to-be 25-year-old could be a carryover with the opportunity to make the team out of training camp.