Juuso Parssinen answered without hesitation.
A member of the Nashville Predators’ staff asked the 22-year-old forward if he thought he could land a plane.
“For sure,” a confident Parssinen said.
The person sitting two stalls to Parssinen’s left in the locker room at Bridgestone Arena thought otherwise.
“He can’t even drive,” forward Yakov Trenin said.
Parssinen laughed. Trenin laughed. The Predators staff member laughed.
Truth is, though, Parssinen has worked hard to make believers out of doubters. And he has done so in rapid fashion.
The Predators landed the 6-foot-3, 212-pound player from Finland in the seventh round of the 2019 NHL Draft.
He was the 210th player chosen that year. There were 217 players picked overall.
Fitting in with Filip Forsberg, Ryan O’Reilly
Parssinen pushed a puck with his stick as he stood near the boards at Bridgestone on Monday morning.
The shriek of a coach’s whistle his cue, Parssinen dug his right skate blade into the ice and launched himself toward Predators goalie Juuse Saros, who waited 190 feet away.
Ryan O’Reilly was to his near left and Filip Forsberg his far left. In a blink, Parssinen placed the puck perfectly on O’Reilly’s stick as the trio quickly approached Saros. O’Reilly flipped the puck to Forsberg, who screamed a shot past Saros.
“He’s definitely mature for his age,” said O’Reilly, who is 10 years Parssinen’s elder. “So many things he does well — the way he skates, his physicality, his smarts with the puck.
“The puck seems to follow him around and he knows where he’s going.”
This season, he has gone to the Predators’ top line, where he is flanked by a pair of veterans who allow him to free his game but who also teach him a lot along the way.
“Unreal,” Parssinen said of playing with Forsberg, the franchise’s all-time leading goal scorer, and O’Reilly, a former captain with a Stanley Cup and many other accolades to his name. “Just trying to fit in with them.”
So far, so good, as his two goals in the first three games of the season suggest. Not a bad follow-up to the six goals and 19 assists he had in 45 games last season.
“You don’t expect much from a seventh-rounder,” Parssinen said. “So you get to work under the radar on progress. I’ve liked that situation.”
Juuso Parssinen: Like father, like son
Juuso Parssinen stuck the puck to his stick with his right hand and fended off Alexis Lafreniere with his left that Nov. 12, 2022 night. That’s right, the 210th player picked in the 2019 draft went through and around Lafreniere, the first overall pick in 2020, to score his first NHL goal.
In his first game. On his first shot attempt.
“That was a quick moment,” he said. “I’ve seen the videos. I’m coming down far side and then cutting in and shooting it. I was like, ‘Wow, I just actually scored on my first shot.’ “
Forsberg bear-hugged Parssinen from behind. Mikael Granlund soon joined the celebration. Then-coach John Hynes had referred to Parssinen that morning as a “horse.”
Turns out Parssinen is more like a thoroughbred. He scored two goals and added an assist two games after that, and he soon tied Forsberg’s franchise record by recording a point in his first seven games.
“It’s a sign of good things to come, right?” Hynes said in January. “He’s a mentally tough kid. He has the physical ability to play at this level night in and night out.”
Parssinen’s father, Timo Parssinen, was drafted by the Anaheim Ducks in 2001, nearly five months before the oldest of his three sons was born. Timo’s NHL career lasted all of 200 minutes, spanning 17 games, and consisting of three assists in the 2001-02 season.
Timo, though, had a successful 13-year post-NHL professional career that took him and his family from California to Finland to Sweden to Switzerland and back to Finland. He played for Finland in the world championships in 2001 and 2002.
The younger Parssinen pointed to the six years he spent in Sweden as crucial to his love of hockey.
“I remember every game and how he took us to a practice rink and was on the ice with us,” Parssinen said of his father. “He had a huge influence on my career. I got to live the hockey life as a kid. I’ve been close to what it’s like to be a pro.”
He’s done it without hesitation.
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This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Nashville Predators’ Juuso Parssinen, 7th-round pick now on top line
