Team Finland has added Buffalo Sabres defenseman Henri Jokiharju and New York Rangers defenseman Urho Vaakanainen to their 4-Nations Face-Off roster. The duo will fill in after Miro Heiskanen and Jani Hakanpaa each suffered injuries that will hold them out through February. They will join Esa Lindell (Dallas), Olli Maatta (Utah), Niko Mikkola (Florida), Rasmus Ristolainen (Philadelphia), and Juuso Valimaki (Utah) on Finland’s blue line.
Finland was down to the wire in finding replacements for their pair of injuries. There are only 11 active Finnish defensemen in the NHL. With this news, Team Finland has already invited nine of those names to the tournament – leaving Ville Heinola (Winnipeg) and Nikolas Matinpalo (Ottawa) as the only two to not receive a call from team general manager Jere Lehtinen. Heinola and Matinpalo are the only active Finns to play in the AHL this season, excluding Hakanpaa’s pair of minor league outings during a conditioning stint.
While their output pales in comparison to who they’re replacing, Finland will get a nice match of styles in Jokiharju and Vaakanainen. The former has been an aggressive two-way defenseman for the Sabres this season. He only has four points through 36 games this season, but has posted a +6 – just the second positive plus-minus of his seven-year NHL career. He posted his first, a +14, through 74 games last season – and coupled it with a career-high 20 points. Jokiharju is working to rediscover those numbers this season, but nonetheless brings stout neutral zone control to the Finnish lineup. While he controls north of the blue line, Vaakanainen will be tasked with filling Hakanpaa’s stout defensive role. Vaakanainen began this season with the Anaheim Ducks but joined the Rangers after just five games, as part of the deal that sent Jacob Trouba to the west coast. Vaakanainen has since stepped into 21 games with New York, filling a bottom pair role and recording five assists, 10 penalty minutes, and a +2. He’s also been a quietly impactful defender in New York state, bringing physicality and size to a Rangers blue line in need of both. He’ll bring the same attributes to the 4-Nations tournament, and hopefully blend with Jokiharju well enough to somewhat match the top-tier impact lost by Heiskanen’s injury.