The Los Angeles Kings have selected Samuel Helenius at No. 49 overall in the 2021 NHL Entry Draft.
Yesterday, in the MayorsManor Draft Predictions article, we mentioned the possibility of grabbing him here.
Aggressive. Quality not quantity..
LA Kings trading up here (thanks to Carolina)
My targets:
Helenius Fwd
Robertson RWhttps://t.co/cok5kOPKaW— The Mayor (@mayorNHL) July 24, 2021
Caught up with scout on Helenius:
Committed, tall and has room to fill in. Knows his role in the future. Plays reg shifts, PK and PP with net front presence. Good speed for his size. Pretty quick feet. Played WJC last season and is at Finland's WJC summer camp right now.
— The Mayor (@mayorNHL) July 24, 2021
More on Helenius via a different scout:
Massive kid that has some of the tools to have a chance to play in the NHL. His skating needs to improve. Puck skills are OK, but you can't teach 6'7 225 (what he will fill out at). Will be a heavy player with limited offense.
— The Mayor (@mayorNHL) July 24, 2021
Yannetti is VERY excited about the two players they moved up to get in the second round. Were highly targeted gets.
And Helenius is already an NHL skater. Players a HARD, heavy game. Leads with compete. When he grows info his body, could be a 3C.
— The Mayor (@mayorNHL) July 24, 2021
KEY NUMBERS AND NOTES
Vitals
Height: 6-foot-6
Weight: 217 lbs
Shoots: Left
Team: JYP
League: Liiga
Position: Forward
Statistics
Regular Season: 54 GP, 7 G, 7 A, 14 Pts
U-20: 7 GP, 2 G, 2 A, 4 Pts
Awards for 2020-21 Season
U20 WJC Bronze Medal
SCOUTING REPORTS
From Future Considerations:
Helenius is a defense-first forward. The enormous size is an undeniable perk, and his straightline top gear in open ice is alright. There’s enthusiasm and competitiveness to his game as well.
From HockeyProspect:
Helenius is a towering, 200-foot center who can out-think his opponents, as well as over-power them. With any large player, we like to breakdown their physiology first, since if his athleticism is below a certain threshold, then his likelihood of making it diminishes greatly. Let’s get this way out of the way, Helenius is more physically developed then both Elmer Soderblom and Tage Thompson were at the same age. Most prospect his size need a lot of physical development before they can play in the NHL, but Samuel isn’t one of them. We’re not talking about a 5+ year wait for him his frame to catch up to the rest of his skillset. Which is significant when breaking down where we decided to rank him. Already against men in Liiga, he consistently over-powers them, wins board battles, and can lay the body. Psychologically speaking, he’s not a mean player and doesn’t play with a ton of bite, but he’s definitely willing to run through a player to get a puck and shows a tremendous amount of effort in doing so. A lot of younger players with his size struggle with the conditioning aspect, yet we found Helenius to have an unnaturally large gas-tank give his age.
From The Draft Analyst:
A towering center with NHL bloodlines who plays a tough 200-foot game, Helenius spent most of his draft season as a bottom-six pivot for a struggling JyP squad that finished near the bottom of Finland’s SM-Liiga standings. He was frequently summoned for defensive zone draws, penalty killing, and late/close situations, but there were times when Helenius was rewarded with an extended role in the top six and even saw power-play time as a net-front presence. A frequent addition to Finland’s rosters at prominent tournaments, Helenius was one of the better defensive forwards at the 2021 under-20 world junior championship. He also represented his country at three under-18 events in his draft-1 campaign of 2019-20, recording two goals and 35 penalty minutes in 12 games.
HIGHLIGHTS
We’ll update this article throughout the evening with additional information.
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If he turns out to be a faceoff wizard we’ve drafted a really solid 3/4 C to head up a shutdown line. A line that could take some hard minutes off of 11 so he’s fresher both later in games and in the season to generate offense; or whomever is manning the first line in 2 years.
He and Pirelli could be the second wave of guys that maintains Kings being playoff contenders for the better part of a decade.
Completely agree. When Turcotte, Kaliyev, Byfield, etc need raises these guys can step in for 800k