Tuomaala got a goal against Jukurit with a nice wrist shot. His time on ice was somewhat limited as he played in third line, but at the moment he is still adjusting to U20 league.

It seemed that Tuomaala had some problems with the tempo and physicality of the league. He is still young and physically immature and he was pretty easily knocked off the puck. Also while Tuomaala seems to be very agile and relatively quick skater, he was one step behind many times. He was often outside the play too.

The young center has pretty good technical skills though. Tuomaala has nice hands, he is pretty good passer and he showed flashes of above average stickhandling abilities. He had only two shots in the game but the wristshot in his goal was above average for this level of play. He also seems to be pretty smart player so it is interesting to see how he develops when he has more U20 league games under his belt and he gets physically more mature.

Tuomaala finished the U17 Five Nations with two assists in four games. Although the Kärpät forward wasn’t a constant offensive threat in the tournament, there were some good elements in his game that project well for pro game. He was one of the youngest players on the Finnish team due to a November birthday.

Tuomaala has quick hands, good offensive imagination and he played an unselfish game with the puck. At times, he displayed the ability to distribute the puck with limited time and space. He’s also an agile and quick skater with good edge work, though he seemed to lack elite top speed to pull away from opponents.

The biggest negative was his lack of strength and toughness which resulted in losing battles along the boards. Adding more muscle would be important to also elevate his defensive game.