Players who can score at the drop of a hat are rare, and you can count Finnish sniper Eeli Tolvanen among them. You just don’t get a nickname like “The Finnish Tarasenko” without that kind of dynamism.
Tolvanen caught everyone’s attention last season with an electric performance as a 17-year-old at the U18 tournament in Grand Forks, North Dakota, scoring nine points in seven games in a tournament where he often surrendered a year of development against his peers. His second season with the USHL’s Sioux City Musketeers ensured he never lost that attention, either. Tolvanen finished his campaign a USHL First-Team All-Star and was widely considered the best player in the entire league last season.