Utah Hockey Club select Veeti Vaisanen No. 96 overall in 2024 NHL Draft

On Saturday at The Sphere in Las Vegas, the Utah Hockey Club took defenseman Veeti Vaisanen in the third round, No. 96 overall in the 2024 NHL Draft. 

Vaisanen is widely regarded as one of the more underrated defensemen in this year’s draft class. The Hamina, Finland native specializes on playing in his own end of the rink and containing the opponent’s top offensive weapons. 

Playing for Kookoo in Liiga (Finland), Vaisanen finished with 10 points (two goals, eight assists) and a plus-1 rating in 50 games last season. The 18-year-old added four points (two goals, two assists) in seven regular-season games and four points (two goals, two assists) in eight postseason games for the KooKoo U20 team.

Internationally, Vaisanen has represented Finland from U16 to U18 over the past three seasons. He has played in 45 games over that time, with his most recent performance coming when he served as an alternate captain for Team Finland at the 2023 IIHF U18 World Junior Championships. 

Vaisenen is a defensive defenseman. But even in that role at the NHL level, you need to be able to break out quickly and cleanly and add to the offense once in a while. That is one area many scouts have looked at as a weakness in his game that he could really improve on. 

Vaisanen ranks 70th on Daily Faceoff prospect analyst Steven Ellis’ final prospect rankings. 

“A lot of the early season hype has started to slow on Vaisanen,” Ellis wrote in his final draft prospect rankings list. “I know some scouts still think there’s first-round potential, but that crowd’s getting smaller. The good news is he has spent most of the year playing against men and has only seemingly gotten better with more experience. If he’d just move the puck quicker, I’d have fewer concerns.”