Matias Vanhanen relishes NHL Draft experience with Devils

Published 10:33 am Thursday, July 16, 2026

This time last year, Matias Vanhanen could not help but feel disappointed.

At the 2025 NHL Draft, 224 picks came and went without any of the 32 teams taking a chance on Vanhanen. The Finnish forward was young for the class — his birthday falling four days before the eligibility cut-off — but he hoped scoring over a point-per-game in Finland’s top junior league in 2024-25 would be enough to warrant his selection.

Vanhanen remained eligible for the 2026 NHL Draft as an overage prospect. He had one year to put his name on the map, and that was his chief motivation when joining the Everett Silvertips as the team’s first-round pick in the Canadian Hockey League Import Draft.

“It kind of pushed you more harder to work harder, and you want to show off more (to) the scouts,” Vanhanen told The Herald over the phone. “You’re going to get drafted next year, and I think that was the mindset for me last season. To prove them wrong and show off more so you can get drafted.”

‘Show-off’ is not a term that coaches and teammates would use to describe Vanhanen as a person. Silvertips coach Steve Hamilton called him “quiet, understated,” and someone who doesn’t draw attention to himself. But on the ice, Vanhanen lets his play do the talking, and he put together a season even his biggest skeptics could not ignore.

Vanhanen led the Silvertips with 87 points (21 goals, 66 assists) in 62 games to set a franchise rookie scoring record. He was the third-highest scorer in the WHL Playoffs with 24 points in 18 games as Everett won its first-ever Ed Chynoweth Cup, and he continued to produce at the Memorial Cup with four goals and four assists in five games (tied for second among all skaters).

It culminated in a pleasant surprise at the 2026 NHL Draft, where the New Jersey Devils selected Vanhanen just five picks into the second round at 37th overall. With everything he had accomplished this season, Vanhanen knew he had elevated his stock, but not even he realized by how much.

“I was hoping I would get drafted late second (round), maybe early third,” Vanhanen said. “But when I heard my name called early second, I was so happy and so excited.”

Vanhanen met with members of the organization a couple of times before the Scouting Combine in Buffalo, and recalled having a “good talk” at the Combine itself. Once he had another call with the Devils between the Combine and Draft, he had a good idea that New Jersey was interested.

On draft day, it was New Jersey’s Finland scout, Tom Sinisalo, who made the call, and he quickly put general manager Sunny Mehta on the phone. Vanhanen immediately felt like he went to an organization that really wanted him — a stark contrast from last year’s snub — and Devils Chief Scout Mark Dennehy confirmed as much in a post-draft interview with team reporter Amanda Stein.

“We were really lucky, very thankful that (Vanhanen) was there when we took him,” Dennehy said. “He’s not only sturdy, he’s not only a gifted player, he possesses a really high hockey sense. He’s got a big-time processor, and he’s able to read the play very quickly, so we think that combined with his skillset will give him a chance to be a pretty good player at the NHL level.”

Dennehy admitted that the consensus about Vanhanen earlier in the season was that he was riding the coattails of line mates Carter Bear and Julius Miettinen — each highly drafted NHL prospects in their own right — but Vanhanen’s performance in the postseason put that narrative to bed.

The Silvertips knew the potential Vanhanen possessed when they brought him in this season, and they saw him unlock different areas of his game in real time. For example, Vanhanen scored just seven goals in the first half of the season, often passing up shots to feed his teammates. He was still productive with 37 assists in 31 games, but the coaching staff encouraged him to shoot more.

Vanhanen ended up scoring 14 goals in the second half of the season, and he totaled the most goals on the team between the WHL Playoffs and Memorial Cup (16). Even beyond the goal-scoring, Vanhanen displayed a strong overall game with keen defensive instincts and enough physicality to hold his own in puck battles.

“When he started to shoot the puck a little more in the second half, I think the scouts saw that he’s not just a playmaker,” Silvertips GM Mike Fraser told The Herald in the days leading up to the draft. “He can score, and he can get pucks past the goalie, so you know, he’s a pretty complete offensive player, and in my opinion, he’s one of the smartest players in our league.”

Before the draft, Fraser was uncertain about Vanhanen’s status with the Silvertips for 2026-27, indicating that the NHL organization he landed with would have some say.

Vanhanen himself said he still has to make a decision. He narrowed 8-10 college offers down to a couple of finalists, and while a return to Everett is still on the table, he indicated that the biggest focus from both his and the Devils’ perspectives is to face bigger, stronger competition — one of the NCAA’s biggest selling points for CHL players.

“I got to play against bigger guys, so I can improve my strength,” Vanhanen said. “They know I’m pretty good with the puck, so I got to just play with bigger and older guys, so I can improve what I think I can improve off the ice being in the gym (a lot), and I think that’s something colleges (do) pretty good.

“But in Everett, you can play a lot, so there’s a couple things I got to think about. But yeah, like I said, they said I just need a lot of compete, taking the next step. I think that’s the biggest thing for me now, playing against bigger guys.”

The Devils got their first look at Vanhanen on their own ice the day after they selected him. It was already evening in Finland by the time Vanhanen was selected, so he had to drive two hours from the family’s cabin back to his house to gather his gear, then drive three hours to the Helsinki airport in order to catch a 7 a.m. flight to Newark on Sunday. After arriving at the airport around 2 a.m., Vanhanen had a few hours to sleep at a hotel before the flight.

The experience was well worth the trip. On top of on-ice activity and workouts, Vanhanen and the other Devils prospects took part in a series of meetings to discuss mental performance, nutrition and recovery. Off the ice, they went golfing and explored around Newark.

Vanhanen also had the opportunity to see established NHLers such as Jesper Bratt and Luke Hughes training at the facility before the Development Camp activities started. If everything goes according to plan, Vanhanen will be joining them eventually.

One year after he went unclaimed, it was the Devils who invested significant capital into Vanhanen’s future.

He plans to deliver.