Ahead of his draft year, I wrote about how Konsta Helenius looked like the next great centre prospect to come out of Finland, based on how promising he looked in Liiga as a 16-year-old.

I can now safely say that the first few months of the season have seen that prediction realized: Helenius, indeed, looks like one of the best prospects to come out of Finland in recent years. He clocked in at No. 8 on our debut 2024 NHL Draft ranking, a ranking he's already outperformed so thoroughly that a top-five spot doesn't seem out of the question when we reconvene.

Helenius has taken off on the scoresheet. He's currently up to eight goals and 16 points in 22 games, up to 0.73 points-per-game from his 0.33 points-per-game average from last season. He's currently leading Jukurit in both goals and points.

That scoring clip pace places Helenius second, only behind Kaapo Kakko among first-time draft-eligibles in Liiga over the past eight seasons. That puts Helenius ahead of most recent top prospects, like Anton Lundell, Jesperi Kotkaniemi, Rasmus Kupari and Juraj Slafkovský.

And still, I'd argue that Helenius' very commendable production doesn't exactly do justice to how well he's played and what a play-driver he's been for Jukurit according to my manually tracked underlying data set.

Let me make my case.