Returning regular · 2025-26
Juuso Välimäki
Carolina Hurricanes · LD · — shot · age 27 at the dated snapshot.
- Team
- CAR
- Lane
- LD
- Age
- 27
Production and deployment
Official split unavailable
The live official report did not return a matching player row. The dated roster identity and lane screen remain available; production stays unknown.
Organizational context
5 LD regulars in CAR
The all-team median is 4. CAR’s farm system ranks #24 in the maintained two-board consensus.
Questions a GM still has to answer
- How much of the scoring comes at five-on-five, on special teams, or into an empty net?
- Is the player creating the play, finishing it, or receiving a secondary point?
- Does deployment reveal trust, scarcity, underuse, or a role the roster cannot offer?
- What contract, acquisition cost, development alternative and Cup-window effect complete the argument?
Tonight · FINAL
FLA at CAR
Projected slot from the licensed depth chart; props from the model's learned layer on shots, finishing and the opposing starter; ratings are last season's until this one has enough games. Information, not a recommendation.
Latest move: The Carolina Hurricanes waived D Juuso Valimaki. (2026-09-27).
White noise · as of 2026-09-29 · social 2026-09-29
Juuso Välimäki is talked about more than most (77th percentile); attention this week is 3.5× his usual
How much he is being talked about: the league's own stories tagged to him, daily pageviews of his Wikipedia article against his own 90-day baseline, posts naming him on the connected networks (Bluesky), and the roster moves and listings that make noise. A measure of attention. Whether it affects a player is his business, and a question the history will let us test later.
Social: 11 posts named him this week on Bluesky · 40 likes, reposts and replies · no baseline yet, it needs a week of readings.
Contract · CAR
Cap hit not published
2026–27 through 2026–27. Certified
Career arc · era-adjusted points per 82 games
Juuso Valimaki, season by season
Each dot is one season. The amber bar is what his earlier seasons and his age predicted for that season (80% band), so a dot far above its bar is a season the numbers did not see coming. The shaded band is where most players at his position sit at each age.
Position band: quantile regression (10th/50th/90th) of qualifying seasons on an age spline, weighted for players who drop out.
What the numbers found
No shipped label applies. A label is a measured finding about a run of seasons (for example, a spike that came back to the old level), and it is shown only for label types that passed their test on held-out seasons.
Projection at the draft
At the draft the model expected 80 NHL hours through his age-25 season (80% band 18 to 137). He logged 66 hours, between the 10th percentile and the median.
Every season
| Season | Age | GP | Level | Expected (80%) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018-19 | 20 | 24 | 9.8 | 6.6 to 44.9 |
| 2020-21 | 22 | 49 | 18.1 | 6.3 to 37.1 |
| 2021-22 | 23 | 9 | 16.7 | −1.5 to 42.3 |
| 2022-23 | 24 | 78 | 32.4 | 7.5 to 32.6 |
| 2023-24 | 25 | 68 | 18.9 | 18.3 to 40.4 |
| 2024-25 | 26 | 43 | 9.0 | 11.2 to 35.8 |
Source: CapOrCup careers desk (method and league curves) · as of 2026-09-29
Comparables at the same age
Who looked like this at 23 to 26
Careers are compared as league-adjusted points per game by age, over the same ages. The comparables below are the closest lines, and what matters is the spread of what they did next, not any single name.
This player so far: age 15 Jr. B SM-sarja 0.75 → age 16 U20 SM-sarja 0.46 → age 17 WHL 0.57 → age 18 WHL 1.02 → age 19 WHL 1.05 → age 20 NHL 0.13 → age 22 NHL 0.22 → age 23 AHL 0.51 → age 24 NHL 0.44 → age 25 NHL 0.25 → age 26 NHL 0.12
| Player | Distance (lower is closer) | What he did afterwards |
|---|---|---|
| Christian WolaninD · matched at ages 23, 24, 26 | 0.07 | age 27 AHL 0.22 → age 28 NHL 0.19 → age 29 AHL 0.31 → age 30 AHL 0.31 → age 31 AHL 0.27 |
| Dmitry KulikovD · matched at ages 23, 24, 25, 26 | 0.07 | age 27 NHL 0.18 → age 28 NHL 0.10 → age 29 NHL 0.20 → age 30 NHL 0.05 → age 31 NHL 0.30 |
| Nick DeSimoneD · matched at ages 23, 24, 25, 26 | 0.08 | age 27 AHL 0.17 → age 28 AHL 0.32 → age 29 NHL 0.22 → age 30 NHL 0.30 → age 31 NHL 0.20 |
| Dylan DeMeloD · matched at ages 23, 24, 25, 26 | 0.09 | age 27 NHL 0.17 → age 28 NHL 0.17 → age 29 NHL 0.36 → age 30 NHL 0.38 → age 31 NHL 0.23 |
| Zach BogosianD · matched at ages 23, 24, 25, 26 | 0.10 | age 27 NHL 0.06 → age 28 NHL 0.29 → age 29 NHL 0.26 → age 30 NHL 0.09 → age 31 NHL 0.17 |
| Scott MayfieldD · matched at ages 23, 24, 25, 26 | 0.10 | age 27 NHL 0.19 → age 28 NHL 0.27 → age 29 NHL 0.29 → age 30 NHL 0.29 → age 31 NHL 0.12 |
| Dennis CholowskiD · matched at ages 23, 24, 25, 26 | 0.10 | age 27 NHL 0.30 → age 28 NHL 0.12 |
| Ethan BearD · matched at ages 23, 24, 25, 26 | 0.10 | age 27 AHL 0.34 → age 28 AHL 0.31 |
Reading it
If most comparables became NHL regulars and their later peak sits well above this player's current line, the numbers say there is room to grow. If most did not, the numbers say the odds are against it. Either way it is what the data shows, not a name chosen to flatter.
Goal archive ·
Every goal, with the league's video
Preseason, regular season and playoffs are kept apart. Each row links to the NHL's own highlight page; no video is hosted here. Where a clip has been reviewed, the reading of it is a model judgement of the frames, not a measurement.
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Roster moves · as of 2026-09-28
Latest club announcements
Waivers, claims, injured reserve, the minors and signings as the club announced them (Sportradar NHL API v7, league transfers feed; licensed feed (30-day trial)). No cause is read into an injured-reserve placement.
2026-09-27 · placed on waivers · The Carolina Hurricanes waived D Juuso Valimaki.
Availability
Games missed
The NHL publishes no injury feed. This counts games his club played while he did not dress, for any reason: injury, illness, a healthy scratch, a suspension or a trade gap. No cause is claimed.
NHL EDGE tracking · 2025-26
Speed, shot and ice
From the NHL's own player-tracking data. Percentiles are the NHL's: the share of the league below this player.
No NHL EDGE data for this player in 2025-26 (usually fewer NHL games, or a goalie).