Against perhaps all odds and early projections, Juuso Rikola has done it. He’s made the Penguins 23-man roster out of training camp. And while it seems like the 24-year old has come out of no where to land on one of the most competitive rosters assembled in all of hockey, it’s hardly been an overnight success story.
A timeline back on where the heck this guy came from:
2010-11: after spending teenage years in Junior-C level competition, at age-17 Riikola has his first important season as a 17-year old. He spends most of the season at the Junior A level for the Finnish team KalPo, the team he will be with up until 2018.