Finnish defenseman Veeti Vainio, 27, has signed a contract to play the remainder of the current season with the Sheffield Steelers, the EIHL club announced on Sunday.
Due to an injury to Colton Saucerman leaving the team thin on defense, coach Aaron Fox confirmed that Vainio is expected to make his debut with the Steelers on Sunday afternoon against the Belfast Giants.
“Veeti is a two-way defenseman that should fit right into our group and give us that needed depth we really need at the moment,” said Fox. “His skating is elite and puck-moving ability I would consider to be another huge strength of his game.”
Born and raised in the Helsinki suburb of Espoo and a product of the now-extinct Blues club, Vainio was a fifth-round draft pick of the Columbus Blue Jackets in the 2015 NHL Entry Draft.
Between 2014 and 2021, Vainio played 131 Liiga games with the Blues, KooKoo, SaiPa and Pelicans, scoring 12 goals and adding 30 assists and 155 penalty minutes.
For the past three seasons, Vainio has played in the Swedish second-tier HockeyAllsvenskan with IF Björklöven and Södertälje SK, although injuries limited him to just 11 games last season.
Internationally, Vainio represented Finland at the 2015 IIHF U-18 World Championship, recording one assist in seven games.
With the Blues in 2015-16, Vainio played in the Champions Hockey League and he should get a chance to do that again, as the Steelers play two games against German champion Eisbären Berlin in the round of 16 over the next two weeks, first in Sheffield on Wednesday and then in the German capital on Tuesday, Nov. 19.
In the EIHL table, the Steelers sit fourth with 12 points in seven games, but have multiple games in hand against the three teams ahead of them and actually have the best points percentage in the league.