3 NHL Prospects to Watch in Finnish Liiga for 2026-27 – The Hockey Writers – NHL Prospects

The Liiga preseason is coming to a close, and three NHL draft picks are opening the 2026‑27 season in Liiga, all before any NHL preseason games kick off. This offseason, I have taken a look at Oliver Suvanto and Juho Piiparinen and considered how they will fit into the Washington Capitals and Vegas Golden Knights systems. I also wanted to see if I could gather any additional information from these preseason games that would better chart their projections and reveal what they have been working on this offseason.

I also had a chance to check on Aron Kiviharju, a fourth‑round pick for the Minnesota Wild from the 2024 NHL Draft. I have heard mentions of him online as one of the strongest prospects in Liiga at the moment and wanted to make sure I got some film of him as well.

I will mention that the obvious two to three Liiga preseason games might not mean much in the grand scheme of things, but by stacking them against their performances last year, taking a look at the systems they will be moving to fit into, and understanding the Liiga teams they are apart of now you can better project how their games will translate and understand their fit when moving over to North America.

Oliver Suvanto Is the Most Advanced of the Three

Washington took Suvanto 18th overall in June, and the 6-foot-3, 209-pound center went right back to Tappara. Last season, as a 17-year-old, he put up 11 points (two goals, nine assists) in 48 Liiga games and was a plus-3. He carried that into the preseason: a goal and an assist in two games, 21-of-31 on faceoffs, and just under 19 minutes a night.

I actually got to see him play against Jokerit on Aug. 19; Suvanto played a heavy, physical game and looked completely at ease against the Liiga players who have many more years under their belt, using his size the way most 17-year-olds simply can’t yet, holding his own in the circle, and scoring. The pro-style, aggressive NHL frame is already there. The offensive touch should keep growing as he logs more minutes against men.

The usage numbers back up what the eye test says. Suvanto took a full defensive-zone diet and won 67.7 percent of his preseason draws, up from 57 percent across last season and international play. Faceoff skill tends to hold steady year over year, and the fact that Tappara trusts him with defensive-zone draws most 17-year-olds never sniff tells you something on its own.

His shot chart tells the same story: most of his attempts come from the slot and the middle of the ice, not the perimeter, which is where you want a center’s shots coming from. None of that is just my eye.

HockeyStats puts him at a 60 percent chance of reaching the NHL, and McKeen’s ranked him 19th in the 2026 class, describing the same big, heavy, pro-style center the tape and his shot chart show.

Washington’s tactical setup fits that game about as well as you’d draw it up. He’s the cleanest projection I’ve got. The season comes down to how many minutes Tappara actually gives him, and whether the scoring starts catching up to what his shot volume already promises. Based on how aggressive and controlling he played on Aug. 19, I would say if he could turn those physical checks into breakouts and turnovers, he will be just fine on his growth path.

Juho Piiparinen’s Ceiling Is the Open Question

Vegas took Piiparinen 29th overall, and the 6-foot-2 right-shot defenseman stayed at Tappara alongside Suvanto. His draft season was thin on offense, with just three assists in 29 Liiga games, and the preseason was a quiet ramp: two games, no points, under 10 minutes a night behind a veteran blue line. The plus-6 he posted last season is the most encouraging number on his whole sheet right now.

This is where my read and the outside evaluations line up, which isn’t always the case. I see a safe, positionally sound stay-at-home defenseman without much of an offensive ceiling, a projectable piece who can help a penalty kill.

McKeen’s landed in the same spot, ranking him 31st and flagging a weak U18 tournament that cost him some draft stock, and HockeyStats gives him a 40 percent chance of reaching the NHL and the lowest equivalency score of the three. Vegas’s system is a natural fit for that defensive profile, but I’m not projecting more than a depth defenseman here, and neither is anyone else.

Here’s the number that pushes back on the stay-at-home label, though: his shooting. Piiparinen generates more shot attempts than his reputation suggests, and his chart shows an active point man, not a passive one. The volume is there. The production isn’t; three assists is three assists. Turning those shots into offense, and climbing a deep Tappara blue line to get the minutes to do it, is what separates a number-four projection from something better than that.

Aron Kiviharju Is Running Out of Runway

Minnesota took Kiviharju in the fourth round back in 2024, a slide caused by a major knee injury rather than anything about his play, and the 5-foot-10 defenseman is entering a third season at HIFK still unsigned. That’s the part of this one that worries me. He put up 17 points in 47 games last season with a minus-10. The preseason was his best stretch by far: a goal and an assist in two games, plus-1, and 19 minutes a night on the top pair.

His value has never been about size or physicality; it’s distribution. Across last season and international play, he was the least physical of the three guys here by a wide margin, and the most productive. Kiviharju drives play by moving the puck and running a breakout. That’s what the scouting reports have said about him from the start, and it’s still true.

By my eye, he’s the most talented defenseman of the three, and I’d put him among the best young blueliners in Liiga right now, elite at moving the puck and running a breakout. When looking at the various projection models, I believe they see the runway problem I do.

HockeyStats has watched his NHL equivalency production climb while its estimate of his odds of ever reaching the NHL has fallen from 41 percent at his 2024 NHL Draft to just 9 percent now. (HockeyStats’ NHL-equivalency probability is a projection model, not a scouting opinion. It moves on production and time-in-league even when the underlying play looks the same or better.)

That drop isn’t a knock on how he’s playing; it’s simply a development-clock penalty, the model docking a high-pedigree prospect who’s spent three full years in the same league without climbing the ladder. Both are true at once: the talent is there, and the window to prove it to Minnesota is closing, not opening.

At the end of the day, these are three players with three separate questions heading into the year. Suvanto has the highest floor and the least to prove. Piiparinen’s projection is safe but capped unless the offense comes. Kiviharju has the most talent of the group and the least time left to cash it in. The preseason was only a first look; the Liiga games that count start Sept. 1, and I’ll be tracking all three from there.