Lekkerim\u00e4ki is feeling more confident as he heads into his second year with the Canucks. Last year was his first rodeo in North America, but he\u2019s looking forward to getting back on the horse for the 2025-26 season.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel better about everything in my game,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s my second year now, it\u2019s not my first training camp, and I know how it goes and how the practices are and how you play pro and all that. I have more confidence this year. It was really good to have had the year that I had. So yeah, I\u2019m very excited for this next year.\u201d<\/p>\n
The offseason has been a good one for Lekkerim\u00e4ki, who played in more games this season than in any other year of his young hockey career.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was staying in Stockholm for the most part, enjoying the sun and the Swedish food,\u201d said Lekkerim\u00e4ki. \u201cI spent some time with my family, friends, just Swedish things.\u201d<\/p>\n
His summer training has been at another level than in previous years. He\u2019s homed in on getting bigger and stronger while working with a small group in Stockholm. His main goal was to get bigger, stronger, and faster, and he believes he has accomplished that.<\/p>\n
\u201cI try to eat everything I can. I think it\u2019s been really good,\u201d said Lekkerim\u00e4ki.<\/p>\n
Lekkerim\u00e4ki has worked closely with the Canucks\u2019 development team on improving his play in the dirty areas and credits Samuelsson, Manny Malhotra, and the Sedins for sharing their experience and expertise.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have to be smart, too. You can\u2019t just be strong,\u201d said Lekkerim\u00e4ki on what he has learned about playing in the dirty areas. \u201cYou have to figure it out, how to think ahead of the defenders and all that. But I\u2019m feeling good, I\u2019ve been working a lot during the season and the offseason. Hopefully, I can keep getting better on the boards.\u201d<\/p>\n
Looking back at the 2024-25 season, Lekkerim\u00e4ki spoke about his NHL experience and what that meant to his family.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a dream and very special to score my first NHL goal in front of my parents. That was a great moment and a great memory for me and my family. It was just a good year overall, playing some NHL games and playing some meaningful games in the AHL. So, yeah, pretty good, it was cool.\u201d<\/p>\n
He later joked that his parents were getting a bit nervous from all the TV time they were getting.<\/p>\n
After a season where he played more games than ever before, the 21-year-old is looking to build on his gains and success last season. He scored 19 goals in 36 regular-season AHL games, in addition to scoring three goals in 24 NHL games.<\/p>\n
He learned how tough playoff hockey is with the Abbotsford Canucks and came up clutch in game four of the Calder Cup Finals, scoring two goals, including the game-winner in a 3-2 victory to give Abbotsford a 3-1 lead in the series.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s still plenty of room for improvement in Lekkerim\u00e4ki\u2019s game, but he feels a good summer of training and family time in Sweden has him ready to hit the ground running as he returns to Vancouver, a place that feels like a second home.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lekkerim\u00e4ki is feeling more confident as he heads into his second year with the Canucks. Last year was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":119103,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,82],"class_list":["post-119102","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119102","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=119102"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119102\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/119103"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=119102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=119102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}