The Flyers acquired forward Ville Leino from Detroit yesterday before the Minnesota game for defenseman Ole-Kristian Tollefsen and a 5th round pick in 2011.
At one point, sometime around August last year actually, Ville Leino was considered a rookie-of-the-year candidate for the 2009-10 season long before James vanRiemsdyk had even entered the minds of most journalists. To be completely fair, even I didn’t expect vanRiemsdyk to be NHL ready without playing a full season in the AHL. I was wrong about vanRiemsdyk, and it seems like many were wrong about Leino.
So what did Leino do to deserve such a lofty prediction?
For one, he was a member of the Detroit Red Wings. It’s hard to imagine a naturally gifted forward not putting up points in Detroit. Unfortunately for Leino, that was long before Detroit hit a little snag this season. Right now they’re nowhere near the Stanley Cup competitors they were last year. Injuries, aging, and scoring slumps certainly didn’t help Detroit’s case much either.
For two, Leino had an incredible jump to the NHL with Detroit. In 13 regular season games, he notched 5 goals and added 4 assists for 9 points. Then in the playoffs, he added another 2 assists in 7 games.
For three, Leino is a naturally gifted scorer. The now 26-year-old, undrafted Finnish star steadily grew over in Europe before making it over to the NHL. In 2005-06, at the age of 21, he led his Finnish league (SM-Liiga) team in scoring with 12 goals and 31 assists for 43 points in 56 games. The next season he fell to 2nd on his team with 11 goals and 29 assists for 40 points in 50 games. Finally, in 2007-08 he had an absolutely incredible break-out season with 28 goals and 49 assists for 77 points in 55 games, good enough to finish 2nd in the entire league in scoring. From there he signed with Detroit, spending a hefty portion of the 2008-09 season in Grand Rapids with Detroit’s AHL team. In 57 games there, he notched 15 goals and 31 assists before his call-up.
So, for such a talented offensive weapon, you’d think we gave up quite a bit, right? Not quite.
Unless of course you consider an oft-injured healthy scratch of a defenseman a lot to give up. Ole-Kristian Tollefsen had been injured a lot this season. He’s also been scratched while healthy quite a bit. He proved to be inept at the outlet pass and a sizable threat in his own zone. The Flyers managed to package him and a 5th round pick from 2011 for Leino.
There’s a reason though, that Leino was dealt. The Red Wings were going to be forced to waive him soon to bring Johan Franzen back to the lineup from LTIR. Leino was almost guaranteed to be lost on waivers, and the Red Wings would have nothing to show for their discovery out of the SM-Liiga. After the trade, they immediately waived Tollefsen to finish up the cap-space clearing for Franzen and got a 5th round pick in 2011 for their generosity.
The Flyers, however, may have come away with a steal.
It’s not all smiles and sunshine though. Leino had become a scratch himself in Detroit recently with his team struggling and his inability to do much about it. The word coming out of Detroit is that he had become lazy and his skating was not up to par. On top of that, his production had taken a terrible turn. In 42 games, he had only accounted for 4 goals and 3 assists, 2 points shy of what he accomplished in 13 games during the 2008-09 season.
You can be sure that if Leino doesn’t skate hard or plays lazy, Laviolette won’t hesitate to keep him in the press box. Will this likely pan out as the offensive surge that the Flyers could use right now? Not likely, but Leino is certainly a good, young talent that could work very well for the team in the future. He’s locked up cheap again next season.
Does this mean the Flyers’ search for a depth forward is over? Probably not.
Leino will wear number 22.
This week the Flyers have two home-and-homes against the Devils now with Ilya Kovalchuk followed by the Montreal Canadiens. Devils games start tomorrow night. After that is the Olympic Break followed almost immediately by the Trade Deadline. It’s going to be a busy month.
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