George Richards, FHN Publisher
Saturday was a night Aleksi Heponiemi will remember for a long, long time. Making his NHL debut, the 22-year-old center scored with 1:15 left in overtime to lead the Florida Panthers to a 3-2 win over the Detroit Red Wings.
For a player who just a year ago was struggling in the minor leagues, not only making it to The Show but being the difference with his first NHL goal nonetheless, well, it sure is hard not to feel good for the kid.
Saturday, he became the first player in Panthers history to score an OT goal in his NHL debut and only the fourth in NHL history to accomplish the feat.
Before Kirill Kaprizov did it for Minnesota on Jan. 14, it had not been done in 31 years.
Nick Knott, who played in a total of 14 games for the NHL’s Brooklyn Americans, was the first to do it back in 1941.
“Nothing is going to change,” Heponiemi said after his big debut.
“Maybe some of those nervous feelings will go away, but it is still hockey and I am going to keep working hard, keep pushing.”
Last January, Heponiemi was with the Panthers’ AHL team in Springfield and things were not going well.
After being cut by the Panthers in training camp, Florida hoped he would go to Springfield and play a lot of minutes, produce and hopefully come up and help the big squad sometime during the season.
Well, that did not happen.
At the midway point of the season, Heponiemi had one goal.
It was his first North American professional season and it took him a long time to get used to a much different game than he saw in junior and in Finland.
Heponiemi ended the season at Springfield with three goals and 14 points in 49 games.
“I am not going to say this has been easy on me,” Heponiemi told me when I visited Springfield last January.
“It hasn’t gone the way I have wanted it. It all comes down to battling … Every goal, you have to earn. Guys tell me it’s going to get better, but it is up to me to make the change, make the difference. You have to have the right mindset to do this.”
At 5-10 and only 145 pounds last year, Heponiemi admitted trying to learn how to play a more physical brand of hockey wasn’t going so well.
Florida’s second round pick in the 2017 draft (40th overall), Heponiemi went from the Swift Current Broncos of the Canadian juniors to play professionally in Finland for Karpat in 2018-19.
Heponiemi was the highest-scoring rooking in Liiga with 16 goals and 46 points in 50 games.
“Last season was good for me,” Heponiemi said before rookie camp in 2019.
“I got off to a slow start but then I started to get used to playing with men and it turned out being very good for me.’’
He came to South Florida and was helped along by Sasha Barkov — the two are both from Tampere — to gear up for training camp.
While Heponiemi showed some flashes of brilliance, it was apparent he needed some more playing time.
To Springfield he went.
“It has been a little bit of a struggle for me, the physicality here and how you have to battle so much has been a process for me to get used to,” Heponiemi said last year.
“It is slowly coming. We’re trying to put some pounds on, make it a little easier. It is coming. It has been good for me here. I still have a lot of things to learn to make the NHL but that’s my goal. I just have to keep working.”
Coming into camp this January and it looked like Heponiemi had put on some pounds.
Sure, he is no heavyweight by any means, but he did not look as small on the ice as he did the last time he was with the Panthers in 2019.
The Panthers have him listed at 10 pounds heavier than he was at Springfield last year, so that’s a start.
Confidence may have been an issue for him when things didn’t go right at Springfield last year — his coach said as much at the time — but that has not been a concern this year.
“A lot of times it is a tough jump from junior to the AHL and sometimes that move is underestimated,” Geordie Kinnear said last year.
“I believe that struggle can be good for players. They don’t struggle in junior and they need to learn how to come out of it. A lot of times when it’s easy for players, there is no growth. He has to embrace the struggle he has had … he is an extremely smart player and he makes the guys around him better. He is just figuring this pro game out.
“No one has fun with it. You lose your confidence but if you look at him now and he is really digging in. He is definitely on the right track. We all want it to happen now and sometimes it doesn’t happen that way.’’
Heponiemi started the 2020-21 season playing for MODO in Sweden, scoring six goals with 14 points in 16 games.
He came into camp with Quenneville saying the Panthers didn’t know what they were going to do with him.
Heponiemi ended up making the cut to stick around with Florida’s taxi squad this season instead of going to the team’s shared AHL team in Syracuse.
Quenneville said Saturday night that he was impressed by Heponiemi’s daily work ethic not only through camp but each day with the taxi squad.
Heponiemi said he is glad they were paying attention.
After Saturday night, well, everyone is paying attention to Heponiemi who has at least earned himself another game Sunday when the Panthers play Detroit again.
“Again, after last season I was ready to just concentrate on this one,” Heponiemi said Saturday night.
“I had the mentality to battle for a spot, work hard and I think did that. There’s still a lot to do, but this is a great opportunity.”