The U18 Finland international played good minutes (20:47) in HPK U20’s 2-0 win against TPS. Lehtinen was held scoreless. He now has ten points (2 goals, 8 assists) in 29 games for his rookie season in Jr. A.

Lehtinen is a smallish two-way defenseman with a decent slap shot, promising puckhandling and good overall skills. The overall impression in this game was a good, yet no spectacular one. The best thing is he often seemed like a leader despite this being his first season. He picked up the puck and started offensive rushes. He passed well, made interceptions for the offensive player, yet not being overly aggressive. There was also economical awareness in his play. He made a few noticeable moves when needed.

I would say there wasn’t anything spectacular in his game, yet no big weaknesses either. He made a couple of mistakes, one of them leading to a opponent breakaway, but he also turned the puck a few times. A few small passes on the top of the stick did show his stickhandling is good. It looks like he has played around with the puck a lot. The question mark is whether he can still improve his skating and overall strength a lot to really stand out.