Continue to the topic Draft very tall hockey playersThe New Jersey Devils selected Finnish goaltender Veeti Louhivaara in the fifth round with the 146th overall pick, acquired earlier today in a trade with the Washington Capitals. Born in Jvasklyla, Finland, Louhivaara stands 6'4″ and weighs 195 lbs. He is under contract with JYP in the Finnish Liiga and played one game for them during the 2023–24 season, keeping a clean sheet as a substitute. Otherwise, Louhivaara had a .890 save percentage and a 2.87 goals-against average for JYP's U20 team in the U20 SM-Sarja. The year before, he had a .911 save percentage and a 2.72 goals-against average in the U18 league.

Below you can see how Louhivaara stacks up against Mikhail Yegorov in Hockey Prospecting's goalie projection model, which factors toughness and performance in the league into an NHL player's likelihood. While I won't condone Yegorov's percentage given the number of shots he's had fired at him, Devils fans should be pretty happy with adding Louhivaara to their roster. If he gets playing time in the Liiga next season with JYP, he could surprise anyone who's wondered why Tom Fitzgerald might field two goalies in the same year.

Noted Devils writer Alex Chauvancy profiled Louhivaara for The Hockey Writers earlier this month. He said the following about the Finnish goalie:

What immediately strikes you about Louhivaara is his size, as he is already 1.93m tall and weighs 89kg. He uses his size well, which helps him shorten the angles of opposing attackers. One area he needs to work on, however, is his lateral movement, as he sometimes struggles to move from post to post. Thankfully, this should improve as he puts more strength into his lower body and bulks up from 89kg.

With the Devils trading Akira Schmid west to the Vegas Golden Knights (along with Alex Holtz), the Devils are certainly looking to rebuild their goalie pipeline with this draft. Louhivaara is a very inexperienced goalie, but he benefits from European pro development. If he moves to the Liiga, he will be playing in a far better league than the USHL or any Canadian junior league. I'm not particularly excited about the “lack of explosiveness” concerns, but goalies are goalies. They will surprise or they will disappear. At this point, he's probably the fifth goalie in their junior pipeline, so Louhivaara has plenty of time to develop before joining the Devils.

With that in mind, what do you think of the selection? Be sure to take part in the poll below, which ends tomorrow at 8pm, and then leave your opinion in the comments.