Five of the Most Notable Finnish Players in CBJ History
By Curtis Deem
The Blue Jackets will get a much needed chance to reset this week and will not have any games until Friday and Saturday, to be played in Finland as part of the NHL’s Global Series. Still looking to get on track this season, they’ll have a tough test as both games will be played against the defending Stanley Cup Champion Colorado Avalanche.
We’ll have to hope they can find their game; but in the meantime we’ll focus our coverage away from the current state of the team. Today we’ll take a look at five of the most notable Finnish players to ever wear a Blue Jackets jersey.
There have been just 15 Finnish-born players in the history of the club, including one on the opening night roster in 2000: Petteri Nummelin. It feels like there have been more for some reason, but perhaps it’s just because a few of them have been so memorable; such as goaltender Frederik Norrena, who spent parts of three seasons in Columbus.
If you were a fan in the 2000s-era, you probably remember Lasse Pirjeta, Tomi Kallio, Hannes Hyvonen, and Sami Lepisto. If we get into the 2010s, we had Markus Hannikainen and Lauri Korpikoski. The Jackets drafted a goaltender who would suit up for one game (Veini Vehvilainen); and gave Mikko Lehtonen a stint with the team in the 2020s.
All of these players are memorable for different reasons. Nummelin was an early standout for the expansion Jackets, giving them a viable defender right out of the gate. Norrena spent an entire season as the de facto starter due to injuries to Pascal Leclaire, and did a pretty nice job. Pirjeta was a 5th round pick of the club who would go on to score 11 goals and 21 points as a rookie – a rare early draft success for a team that struggled so hard to find talent.
But there are five players who hail from Finland in our history, who stand out for different reasons. Some spent most of their careers with other teams, but it’s important to include them on this list because of their contributions to hockey. This is not a ranking of their careers or how they performed with the Blue Jackets. In fact, these players are in no particular order, we just wanted to recognize them individually.