Boston Bruins Draft: Joona Koppanen

The Boston Bruins pulled six draft picks at the 2016 NHL Entry Draft.  While five of the six picks had me excited (or at least content), one of the six seemed like a true head-scratcher. Last Sunday, I was invited to participate in the Black and Gold podcast, where fellow Bruins fans and writers Mark Allred and Rob Tomlin discussed the Bruins draft picks.

At the 30:25 mark, we talk about Joona Koppanen.  Overall, we found him to be the toughest of the six picks. Sure, he’s a big guy. He’s 6’5″ and has the potential to be a decent player, but we weren’t really big on him.

“I think that the draft was awesome and I’m really excited for the draft to Boston,” said Koppanen, who added “Tuukka Rask plays there” when asked what he knows about the Bruins. “My strength is to skating and I’m a good two-way forward.”

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He’s not terrible. Koppanen put up 26 points (nine goals) in 40 games for the junior team in Finland last year.  He wasn’t able to produce at the World Juniors, getting shut out in the seven games the U18 Finnish team played.

The Bruins believe in him a lot more than the fans do at the moment.

“He’s a big guy, and for a big guy he can really move around. He’s very good defensively and smart with his positioning. He plays hard,” said Bruins head scout Keith Gretzky. “The skill is the one area that needs to develop, and we think it’s going to do that. He was a guy that we targeted because he’s a big guy that can skate, and is good in his own end.”

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Maybe the Bruins were just looking for a bigger, badder version of Joonas Kemppainen. Kemppainen was disappointing for the Bruins. He became the B’s ‘stay-at-home’ forward, and he was kept on the Boston roster way too long. The Providence Bruins couldn’t find much use for him either, and weren’t disappointed when Kemppainen signed outside the league.