After trading the 115th pick to the Tampa Bay Lightning for the fourth-round pick next year originally belonging to the Chicago Blackhawks, the Predators’ next selection was at 121st. With it, they added overage goalie Juha Jatkola from KalPa of the Finnish Liiga.
Jatkola’s statline hasn’t looked impressive, though he had a great three-game playoff run this past season. He’s excelled in occasional short bursts, like that and his two-game loan to Kärpät in 2021-22. On the other hand, his sv% this past season was .903 over 40 games (the team went 20-11-8).
Without having watched tape or having access to advanced stats yet, I couldn’t even begin to guess how much of this is Jatkola’s teams providing badly-suited defense for him, but it’s clear the Preds saw something they liked in him.
The Elite Prospects scouting reports note that Jatkola is a good skater, not aggressive all the time but capable of making some dramatic saves.