The long-awaited National Hockey League debut of Jonathan Lekkerimäki took place on Wednesday as the Vancouver Canucks took down the Calgary Flames.

Lekkerimäki earned the call-up after a strong seven games in the AHL with the Abbotsford Canucks. He scored five goals and two assists for seven points, but what was most encouraging to see was his willingness to shoot the puck. Through those seven games, he registered 39 total shots for an average of 5.6 shots per game, with game logs of five shots on goal in six of those outings.

There were rumblings he would get the call-up sooner rather than later, but once known Canucks snipers Brock Boeser got injured and Daniel Sprong was traded, Lekkerimäki was the clear shooting option to fill in that role.

By all accounts, the 20-year-old had an impressive debut. Although Lekkerimäki didn’t shoot at every opportunity, he was able to land both of his shot attempts on net and from dangerous scoring chances. In not shooting carelessly, he was smart with his decisions to make the safe, correct play to help his team generate in the offensive zone. And that is reflected through his on-ice stats at 5v5:

Now, Boeser isn’t a player you’re going to replace easily. However, the level Lekkerimäki’s line with Pius Suter and J.T. Miller performed at 5v5 tonight will definitely help fill in the gaps until Boeser is ready to return.

The Swede walks away with a 3-1 victory over the Flames in his NHL debut. But let’s put the rookie under the microscope, analyze all 20 shifts and 14:07 minutes of Lekkerimäki’s ice time and highlight his play in our series, The Tape.

On his first NHL shift, Lekkerimäki showed a little bit of rookie nerves as Miller won the faceoff that goes through his legs toward the boards, and he got out-bodied to the puck, which led to a Flames breakout. But that didn’t discourage Lekkerimäki as he was the first forward back and threw a hit – more like a bump – into 6’6″ Flames defenceman Kevin Bahl.

But the real fun starts now.

As Filip Hronek heads up ice, he finds Lekkerimäki picking up speed in his own zone and carries the puck up ice. As Jonathan Huberdeau comes to pressure Lekkerimäki, the Swede gives a nice head fake to the outside, gets Huberdeau to bite, dekes to the middle, and has nothing but wide-open ice in front of him. Lekkerimäki gains the zone and finds Suter on the left, who then floats a tip opportunity for Lekkerimäki. However, the attempt was a little out of his reach, and the puck went off the side of the net.

But Lekkerimäki doesn’t quit; he chases the puck to the backboards, turns his back to the defender to protect it, and shovels it around the boards to Quinn Hughes. Lekkerimäki didn’t wait long to show fans a little bit of his offensive flash with that slick move on his first shift.

It seems like the coaching staff wants to utilize Lekkerimäki’s speed through the neutral zone, as this is the second time on only his third shift that he received a breakout pass while circling through the zone and up the ice. However, this time, he gets checked by Ryan Lomberg and doesn’t get a clean dump-in opportunity to gain the zone.

On the ensuing zone entry for the Flames, Lekkerimäki is left in the F3 (defensive forward) position, covering the middle of the ice. Once Miller is back, Lekkerimäki points at him, almost seeming to try and switch so Miller can take over his F3 spot. But Miller continues to play the winger role, trusting the rookie to man the centre of the ice — a big bode of confidence from Miller to trust Lekkerimäki in that position.

It pays off, as the play ended in a weak shot on goal from the Flames and a Kevin Lankinen cover-up.

A quick example of Lekkerimäki being the first one back and becoming the F3 position. Except this time, he stops up a bit and faces away from his net. Which is fine to do, but you see how MacKenzie Weegar is able to slip behind Lekkerimäki without him even noticing? When Lekkerimäki turns his body to intercept what he thinks is a weak pass across the middle, it goes off his stick and perfectly aligns for Weegar to go in for a scoring chance.

If he’s going to be the first forward back and needs to play that F3 position often, he’s going to need to be aware of all the players on the ice before making that turn and potentially getting burned by a sneaking opponent. Luckily, Lankinen was able to stick with the play and make the easy glove stop.

But hey, this is only the fourth shift of his NHL career. It’s not a glaring flaw in his game, but he probably shouldn’t be put in these situations so early on.

Back in the offensive zone for Lekkerimäki, where he follows the play behind the net. Noticing he isn’t contributing to the scrum, his offensive mind kicks in, and he moves into a more advantageous position, wide-open in front of the net. There, he’s in a prime position to pick up the loose puck. But instead of just firing it back to the point, he shows off the patience and draws in three defenders before making that pass. Hronek then slides it over to the shifty Hughes, who has some wide-open ice to work with.

Hughes rips a shot toward the net, but it doesn’t make it through the traffic – which hits Miller and leaves him grimacing. The puck bounces around, but Lekkerimäki shows off his hand-eye coordination to chop it back to Hughes and continues the Canucks’ offensive zone possession.

Excuse me? Is that the 5’11”, 172-lb 20-year-old rookie coming off the bench into the offensive zone and laying the body on Nazem Kadri? Yes. Yes, it was. In fact, he keeps at it as he continues to be a thorn in the side of the Flames defenders as he continues to forecheck.

He then follows that up by chasing the puck carrier. This pressure results in a weak outlet pass for Tyler Myers to break up and flip to Lekkerimäki for a chip past the defender and into the Flames zone. This goes to show what a little hustle can do.

The Canucks start the second period on the power play. And unlike in practice the previous two days, Lekkerimäki replaces Suter on the top unit. Although Lekkerimäki didn’t touch the puck, the Canucks scored just 23 seconds into the power play to tie the game at one.

On this shift, we finally see Lekkerimäki have a dangerous scoring chance. After carrying the puck through the neutral zone again, we see Erik Brännström take a wrist shot from the point. The loose puck winds up on Miller’s stick, where he fakes a slap shot and finds Lekkerimäki at the faceoff dot. Not in a shooting position, Lekkerimäki shows off his creativity by spinning back, pulling in another defender and feeding the point again.

Vincent Desharnais sends a slap-pass off the back boards – or he just straight-up missed the net on his shot attempt. Suter quickly flips the puck toward the net, where chaos ensues – surprisingly without Myers on the ice. Miller takes a few wacks at the loose puck in front of Dan Vladar before it pokes out to Lekkerimäki on the left, who has a great opportunity to bury his first NHL goal, but the Flames netminder gets a pad on it.

Lekkerimäki would change, but the puck wouldn’t leave the zone, and Suter would score to put the Canucks up one. It was a great offensive zone shift from Lekkerimäki. If this line continues to generate at this level in the attacking zone, it won’t be long before the young Swede nets his first NHL point.

A pretty quick one here, but wanted to show Lekkerimäki’s quick thinking here after Lomberg slashes Brännström’s stick out of his hands, and the puck goes straight to him. It’d be easy for a rookie to get overwhelmed with multiple players darting at him, not Lekkerimäki. He takes a second to make the right pass to Hughes at the point, who fires it to Miller for a one-time opportunity — a nice heads-up play from the rookie.

On that ensuing power play, this is where we see how they project to use Lekkerimäki on the man-advantage. As the Canucks get set up, Lekkerimäki heads straight to the bumper spot. Typically, we’ll see Miller on the left half-wall and Elias Pettersson on the right half-wall for his one-timers. But to utilize Lekkerimäki’s right-hand shot, they switch Miller to the right. We’ve seen them do this when Boeser’s been in the bumper so they can take advantage of the quick release on his strong side. Now, the team’s giving Lekkerimäki the same role.

At first, Miller moves down the ice to try and find a lane to Lekkerimäki, but with that covered, he sends it back to Hughes at the point. Hughes then skates to the left, pulling the top defender out of position to guard Lekkerimäki. Hughes then fires it back to Miller and, with an open Lekkerimäki, fires it his way instantly for a quick one-timer and his second shot of the game.

Pettersson makes a great play to nudge the puck back toward an inching Lekkerimäki, but he has his pocket picked, and the Flames clear the zone. If Lekkerimäki is going to be used as we’ve seen Boeser has in that bumper spot, it’s only a matter of time before his quick shot blazes past the goalie.

As future-Canuck – according to David Quadrelli – Rasmus Andersson carries the puck up the ice, Lekkerimäki stands his ground, forcing Andersson to fumble the puck. Lomberg picks it up, and Lekkerimäki pokes it deep into the Flames zone. Normally, this wouldn’t be much of a clip, but the Canucks are able to turn that into an attacking zone shift. The Swede then parks himself in front of the net, and as Hughes goes down the left side, Lekkerimäki uses his back end and boxes out the defender with his stick on the ice, ready for a tip-in chance.

However, he doesn’t receive that pass, but his efforts lead to a scoring chance. This positioning to make himself a scoring option was exactly what you want to see.

As Hughes carries the puck out of the zone, he sends a cross-ice, two-line pass to Miller. While the pass is being completed, Lekkerimäki speeds through the defenders and is all alone, streaking towards the ice. Unfortunately, Miller overshoots the saucer pass, and we’ll never see what could have amounted from the sniper on his first breakaway opportunity.

You can hear this almost-chance leave the fans in Rogers Arena – and my living room – with a resounding “Ohhhh,” as the puck just missed him.

It really seems they’re going to use Lekkerimäki in the transition game, and he’s going to succeed in it.

As Miller breaks up an Andrei Kuzmenko pass attempt, Lekkerimäki grabs the puck and skates it through the neutral zone with speed. He drops the puck back to Miller. The next pass was blocked, but the Canucks maintained possession. With the puck now down low, Lekkerimäki finds the open space in front of the net and lines up for a shooting opportunity.

The pass goes straight through his legs, but he continues to show he’s got a knack for finding the open areas of the ice.

His next comes on the Canucks’ late power play. Except this time, the Flames learned what the Canucks wanted to do: feed Lekkerimäki in the bumper. And they covered him like a hawk for the majority of the man-advantage.

But hey, if you’re drawing two of the four defenders on the penalty kill, Lekkerimäki is already proving he’s an offensive threat that needs to be accounted for.

Lekkerimäki was trusted with a shift in the final few minutes to ice the game, as the Flames had an empty net. Maybe it was to try and get him his first NHL goal, or maybe head coach Rick Tocchet trusted his defensive game enough to award him the late-game opportunity. Regardless, this was a big vote of confidence from his coach.

Despite his first NHL game, there were multiple instances of Lekkerimäki direction traffic in the defensive zone. The first edition was on the second clip when he was in the F3 position with Miller.

Now, this one, he again reads the play and points to the open area of the ice, indicating where Teddy Blueger should go. The pressure and positioning of Blueger – as instructed by Lekkerimäki – leads to the Flames defender bobbling the puck, losing the zone, and is left with no choice but to fire it back in and let the Canucks gain possession.

This is normally something you’d see out of an NHL veteran, but Lekkerimäki doing it in his first game shows his high hockey IQ and instincts that he already possesses.

His speed is evident. Multiple clips above show how they wanted to utilize his speed through the neutral zone, putting defenders on their toes. On this play, Lekkerimäki uses that speed to get back after a Suter turnover at the blue line, which gives Martin Pospisil a partial breakaway. While he doesn’t fully get back quick enough to stop the shot, Lekkerimäki does get back fast enough to cut off Pospisil’s angle for a low-risk shot attempt.

Speed isn’t everything, but the youngin put it on display tonight and should help the Canucks’ transition game that Tocchet wanted to implement this offseason.

All in all, Lekkerimäki failed to find the scoresheet but didn’t fail at generating scoring chances. He finished with two shots on goal but didn’t look out of place in his NHL debut. If he continues to play this way, the coaching staff might just have to make a permanent spot in this Canucks lineup.

What do you think, Canucks fans? Were you impressed with the long-awaited debut of Jonathan Lekkerimäki? Let us know in the comments below!

Also check out the voice-over video breakdown edition of The Tape down below!