Tolvanen Left His Backyard, But It Never Left Him 

Kraken winger Eeli Tolvanen doesn’t hesitate at harkening back to a private backyard sports court in his Finnish hometown when asked about the physical style he plays with a rather unimposing 5-foot-10, 190-pound frame.

That energy, providing a net front and corners edge to Tolvanen’s powerful shot and scorer’s touch, has already taken him far beyond the sports court built by his father in a vacant wooded field behind their home. His seemingly carefree nature, underscored by a boyish grin and locker room prankster reputation, conceal some of that edge Tolvanen has often used to take others by surprise.

“It was probably because of my brothers,” Tolvanen said. “We played a lot of backyard games.”

His eldest brother, Joona, is seven years older, while middle brother, Atte, is 4 ½ years Tolvanen’s senior. Their father, Markku, a teacher just like their mother, Paivi, had designed their rudimentary sports court that he’d flood with ice as a rink in winter, then leave for basketball, soccer and ball hockey in summer. Some of the games used to get very competitive.

“I always tried to play,” Tolvanen said. “And I was punching them and all that. So, I started from there and then when we played hockey, they were always laughing at me, too. Probably more because I was a very small kid. But I didn’t like that.”

Tolvanen got the last laugh, taking his game higher than both brothers, who’ve had successful pro careers of their own overseas. He’s currently on pace for the most points in his NHL career after finishing second on the Kraken with 23 goals last season.

On the physical side, his team-leading 107 hits are 15 more than sported by the next closest Kraken player, fourth line winger Tye Kartye. Tolvanen attributes much of that to his use this season on the team’s penalty kill unit, which, along with a regular power play turn, has kept him on the ice longer. He’s averaging 22:37 per contest -- a full five minutes more than his career best a season ago – and says it’s forced him to stay more focused and physically prepared.

Last week, his play was rewarded with a spot on Team Finland’s entry for next month’s 2026 Winter Olympic Games Milano Cortina. It’s the second such honor for Tolvanen, who also competed for Finland at the 2018 Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea, but his first involving a “best-on-best” competition where NHL players will participate.

“That’s always been a dream of mine,” he said.

A dream forged in the backyards of his youth in Vihti, a countryside town of 29,000 about 30 miles northwest of the Finnish capital of Helsinki. But to take that dream to the next level, Tolvanen, already a fixture in the Finnish junior league and the country’s Under-17 national team, felt it best to leave the backyard, cross the ocean and start preparing for life as a professional before he’d even turned 16.

“It was the best thing I ever did,” he said.

His oldest brother had participated in a high school exchange program that saw him play hockey and lacrosse his senior year at Bishop Timon-St. Jude, a prep school in Buffalo, NY.

By the time Joona returned home to Finland, both younger brothers had gotten an earful about the merits of playing hockey in the United States, learning the language and culture and growing accustomed to the North American game.

“It’s a big step when European players go abroad for the first time,” Joona Tolvanen said. “It was a fun year with my teammates and friends I made for a long time after that. You develop a lot in overcoming language barriers and learning to play on a bigger stage.”

Bigger in terms the caliber of opponent, for sure, but a smaller, tighter stage in terms of ice surface itself compared to standard European rinks. The smaller North American rinks can be a tough transition for European skill players, who find less room to operate and can quickly be overmatched if they lack a physical aspect to their game.

But Joona said that wasn’t a problem for his future Kraken youngest brother.

“Of course, it was always very physical with him,” he said of their backyard hockey games. “He’s seven years younger than me and he was a lot smaller, so he got used to it (physical play) pretty well. My other brother was a goalie and that’s usually where we’d put the smallest kids, but Eeli couldn’t do that because his brother was already the goalie and we didn’t need one.

“And in our neighborhood, Eeli was like, the youngest kid. So, the small guy came to play with us. I’d say that’s where he got it (his toughness) from.”

The goaltending middle brother from their backyard games, Atte, was the next to head overseas, playing two junior level seasons in the North American Hockey League team and then heading to Northern Michigan University. That’s when Eeli Tolvanen, still only 15, decided he’d try out for an emerging junior level powerhouse United States Hockey League squad in Sioux City, Iowa.

That team, coached by current Philadelphia Flyers assistant Jay Varady, featured a roster of mostly 18-to-20-year-olds. Varady gave Tolvanen a week-long practice tryout with the full squad in the spring of 2015, right before Tolvanen’s 16th birthday in April.

Tolvanen surprised the team with his abilities and earned an invitation to fall training camp, where he not only made the squad but led it with 17 goals and a second-best points total of 38.

The following season, the Sioux City Musketeers, with a roster that included future Columbus Blue Jackets goalie Matiss Kivlenieks, and the older brothers of current NHL players Matthew Knies and Martin Pospisil, won the regular season title and went all the way to the USHL championship round before losing to the Chicago Steel in a decisive fifth game of the best-of-five series.

Tolvanen led the team in scoring with 30 goals and 54 points at age 17, finishing well ahead of No. 2 point-getter Phillip Knies, 18, and No. 3 Kristian Pospisil, 20. Musketeers goalie Kivlenieks, age 20 that season, made the NHL within three years. He also starred internationally for his native Latvia in a shocking IIHF World Hockey Championship upset of Team Canada in 2021 just weeks before being killed in a July 4 holiday mishap at a Blue Jackets team party.

“We had a really tight group,” Tolvanen said. “My first year, all of the school age kids went to high school together and we all hung out. Then, my second year I did online courses. So, then it was pretty much the older guys I hung out with. Everybody lived close together, so you’d go to practice in the morning and then go hang out at somebody’s house in the afternoon.”

Tolvanen didn’t just score goals. He also learned about the importance of playing the game “right” and thinking more like a pro.

Last week against the Vancouver Canucks, the Kraken had pulled their goalie for an extra skater during a delayed penalty call. The Canucks eventually gained possession to cause an automatic play stoppage but, instead of doing so by merely touching the puck, Kiefer Sherwood fired a long, hard slap shot into the vacated Kraken net.

Tolvanen immediately got in Sherwood’s face, and they needed to be separated. He knew better, having done the same thing early on in his USHL career.

“It wasn’t the smartest idea,” Tolvanen said of his youthful actions at the time. “It shows a lack of respect for other players, other teams.”

He said Musketeers coach Varady immediately got on him about it back then. Tolvanen credits Varady as one of his biggest early influences and the pair caught up for some conversation two weeks ago when the Flyers were in town to play at Climate Pledge Arena.

“I really learned a lot from playing over there,” Tolvanen said. “I mean, hockey is pretty big in Finland, too. But the rink over here is smaller, so the hockey is more like the NHL style. And it’s always been my goal to make the NHL, and I was too small a forward to play pro hockey in Finland even though I was putting up big numbers in the junior league there. So, my dad suggested trying the U.S. as well. It was a very big move for me.”

His parents helped ease the transition and homesickness by renting a house and moving overseas to Des Moines, Iowa, about three hours from Sioux City, so they could be halfway between him and his college playing middle brother and make frequent visits to see both.

Tolvanen also led Finland’s national junior team in scoring across all competitions that second USHL season in 2016-17 with seven goals and 16 assists and played for them at the World Junior Hockey Championships. That got him on NHL scouts’ radar, with the Nashville Predators making him a first-round pick, 30th overall, in June 2017.

Tolvanen might have been drafted higher if not for uncertainly over being able to continue his career in the NCAA. Boston College, where he’d hoped to play, ruled right before the draft that Tolvanen lacked enough high school equivalency credits from Finland to suit up with them. He’d have to play another USHL season and keep attending high school classes in Sioux City.

Tolvanen instead headed back home to Finland to play for the Jokerit squad managed by onetime Edmonton Oilers star Jari Kurri in the professional Kontinental Hockey League. The KHL circuit at the time was considered one of the best pro circuits outside the NHL, comprised of ex-NHL and European pro league veterans typically a decade or more older than 18-year-old Tolvanen.

“I just remember him scoring so many goals in practice,” team captain Peter Regin, a former NHL player then 31, said of the teenager in their midst. “Then, he was good in the preseason. But then, he goes out in that first game and scores a hat-trick. That, I didn’t expect.”

Tolvanen scored three goals his regular season debut in Moscow against Dynamo Minsk and former NHL goalie Jhonas Enroth. He’d finish with 19 goals in his 46 games and a KHL record-setting 36 points by a player age 20 or younger.

In the midst of that season, playing for Finland at the Winter Olympics, he led the team in points with three goals and six assists. He and future Dallas Stars defender Miro Heiskanen were the only 18-year-olds on a squad with 12 players in their 30s and 20 of them aged 26 and over. He was named to the tournament’s all-star squad.

The experience with older players that KHL and Olympic year further taught Tolvanen lessons about respect and staying humble in the face of even more prodigious success than he’d had in the USHL.

“I’ve always had good starts in places I’ve been,” Tolvanen said. “And then, confidence is a big key in building off that. I feel every place I’ve been, hockey-wise it’s been good the first few months. And when hockey is good, everything else is good and it’s a snowball effect after that.”

The good times kept rolling for Tolvanen that spring, when he made his NHL debut in three late Predators games. He then scored 15 goals in 58 games his first full AHL season, another 21 goals in 63 games his sophomore campaign and then 11 goals in 40 games with Nashville in 2020-21.

But then, NHL production stalled the next season-plus and Predators general manager David Poile committed what he later termed a mistake in December 2022 by putting Tolvanen through waivers to get back him to the AHL. Kraken general manager Ron Francis pounced with a waiver claim and the rest is history.

As he always does, Tolvanen struck fast with16 goals his first 48 games with his new Kraken team and also scored their first ever playoff goal against Colorado that spring. He followed that up the next season with 16 more goals and a career high 41 points, then added the 23 goals last season.

This season, playing a more all-around role, he’s taken his game to new level.

His good friend, fellow Finnish native Kaapo Kakko, stayed with Tolvanen and his girlfriend at their townhouse last season while seeking a new apartment after a December trade to the Kraken from the New York Rangers. Kakko was also recently named to the Finland Olympic team and is looking forward to traveling with Tolvanen to Milan.

“It’s very nice,” he said of getting to share his Olympic experience with Tolvanen. “I mean, he’s having a great season so it’s not a surprise that he’s going to be there.”

The pair first crossed paths as teenage linemates on Finland’s gold medalist world juniors squad in 2019, Tolvanen’s second appearance in that tournament. But living with Tolvanen gave Kakko an up-close view of the lighter side of his personality rarely visible on the ice.

“On game days, he’s at least a little focused about the game,” Kakko said. “But yeah, he’s a funny guy.”

Kraken head coach Lane Lambert has said he enjoys the “extremely talented” Tolvanen and the edge he brings to his game beyond scoring, adding he can stay on top of opponents and force them into bad decisions.

As far as Tolvanen’s own decision-making goes, following his oldest brother’s footsteps out of the backyard for an early age taste of North American hockey proved wise indeed. For all Tolvanen has experienced already, it’s easy to forget he’s only 26 with room for development still.

“I’m not surprised because with the skillsets that he has, he’s always been able to play at that next level when taking a step up,” his brother said. “And he changed his game over time to become the NHL player he is today. In junior hockey, he had a lot of goals and points but now he’s more of a two-way player. His overall game style has been taking big steps every year.”

Those steps have taken Tolvanen further than imagined from a backyard he never really left behind and still visits every summer for some impromptu ball hockey slap shots at target nets.

“That’s where it all started,” Tolvanen said. “It will always be part of who I am.”