There was one irrefutable truth from New Jersey Devils general manager Tom Fitzgerald’s roundtable discussion on Wednesday with the local media, and it centered around their 21-year-old prospect.
When asked about Lenni Hämeenaho, Fitzgerald said, “He is a dip your toe in a pool type of player.”
It is a sentiment that Devils head coach Sheldon Keefe and Utica Comets head coach Ryan Parent have recently attested to.
“It was a discussion point coming into this season,” Keefe said after Friday’s practice. “He historically has been a guy who takes some time to get comfortable. That is my experience watching him, whether it was in the rookie tournament (where) I thought early on, he didn't look overly confident or assertive, and he was injured. He came into training camp and played some preseason games, and didn't look overly confident or comfortable. That was the same in the early going in Utica, but he is showing now to be the player we think he can be."
“Early in the year for him, it was just adjusting to the game over here, which is different,” Parent told The Hockey News. “A different rink, a different team, a different style of play, living away from home, which he hadn't done before. There are just a lot of adjustments.”
Photo Credit: Utica CometsFor the 2025-26 season, Hämeenaho resides within the city of Utica and lives in the same building as some of his younger teammates, which has, of course, been helpful. Off the ice, he prefers to relax at home and watch hockey, whether it is the NHL, where enjoys watching David Pastrnak of the Boston Bruins and Artemi Panarin of the New York Rangers, or the teams back home in Finland.
On the ice, Hämeenaho has felt more like himself as of late and currently leads the team with 21 points (9G, 12A) in 33 games.
“I was not feeling that comfortable the first game, so I tried to play good in the defensive zone," he said. "I know I have that skills to play offense, and I think the first 10 games I was learning the game. After that, I kind of knew how to play here, and felt (like) myself on the ice and trusted myself with the puck.”
In the early days of the season, as Hämeenaho was acclimating to his new world, the most significant thing that stuck out about the 6′0″, 173-pound player wasn’t his offensive prowess, but his defensive play.
“I felt that at the start of the year, he was a really strong defensive player,” Parent said. “A lot of times with first-year players, that is a bit of the struggle, being able to be put in situations where we have a lot of trust in. For him, he was able to do it right away. He was able to play in a lot of different situations, and as he was figuring out the game, you could see the offense start come together for him.”
Almost immediately, the winger was entrusted on Utica’s top penalty kill along with Comets’ captain and forward Ryan Schmelzer.
“The one thing that stands out, specifically for wingers, is to have a wing that comes as a draft pick or junior player who is that responsible and plays so well on the defensive side of the puck right away,” Parent continued. “That was the one thing that kind of set him apart from a lot of other guys that we have seen.”
Photo Credit: Utica Comets Since the start of the 2026 calendar year, Hämeenaho has found a home on the Comets’ top line with Angus Crookshank and Kyle Criscuolo. Through those six games, he has seven points (3G, 4A).
“It has been really nice,” Hämeenaho said. “I think they are both really good players and good leaders. Criscuolo has played for a pretty long time, so he has been a good leader. Crookshank is very fast. It is really easy to play with those guys.”
“It is hard coming as a young man over to a new country, a new, different style of hockey,” Crookshank told The Hockey News. “He started to really, kind of find a stride. He thinks so well. He sees the ice so well. He is only going to get better and better for us, and he will be an important piece down the stretch.”
Hämeenaho explained that he plays around 18-20 minutes per game and that his current confidence stems from his ice time and how comfortable he feels at the rink, which includes the locker room, where his personality is slowly beginning to emerge.
“He is starting to open up a little bit more,” Crookshank continued with a smirk. “He is actually quite funny. He makes little comments underneath his breath that sometimes you catch, which are actually quite good. He is opening up more and more.”
With the comfortability that he has found since September's training camp, the question does not seem to be if he will find his way to New Jersey, but when.
“We are having a lot of discussions about what is the right transition for him to be in the NHL, so we can put him in a position to succeed, and not just throw him into a situation because we need some help,” Keefe continued. “Let us do right by him to make sure we have got a player who is going to have a long NHL career.
“Certainly, he has had our attention for weeks now, quite frankly,” Keefe continued.
"We have talked about bringing him up, even just to practice with us, so he is comfortable here," Fitzgerald shared. "So, one, it is a meritocracy. He is playing well, and we want to give him an opportunity, but we want to make sure he feels very comfortable in a situation that we can get the best out of him at that time.”
While it was a slower start, the first 33 games of Hämeenaho’s rookie season can be summed by one word: Maturity.
“He has a really good perspective of how he plays, and a good evaluation of himself, which is a pretty mature thing,” Parent said. “He is really self-aware, and he has a lot of good insight for his own game.”
It has stood out to his coaches and teammates, who know first hand the challenges that a player faces in their first professional season.
"It is not easy," Crookshank said. "I remember when I first started playing pro, playing defense in pro hockey is a lot different. There are men out here. Kudos to him for not getting absorbed into the numbers. I think you see that for a lot of guys, the numbers weren't great, but numbers starting to come for us. For him, it is learning that side of it and being trusted in situations like the end of game, penalty kill, and defensive zone draws. He is out there with Criscuolo and I or Schmelzer or whoever is going out. Kudos to him for being on the right side of the puck and playing the game the right way."
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