Montreal Canadiens Top Prospects Countdown: #8 Jesse Ylonen

Montreal Canadiens general manager has compiled a long list of prospects. We are counting down the top 30.

Montreal Canadiens general manager Marc Bergevin has been building through the draft for the past three years. It has resulted in the Habs having one of the deepest group of prospects in the league.

So, we have been counting down the Canadiens Top 30 prospects.

This started with the 30th spot going to Jack Gorniak. The 29th spot went to Jacob LeGuerrier, the 28th place was taken by Otto Leskinen, 27th went to Rafael Harvey-Pinard, 26th was Jack Smith, 25th was Jacob Olofsson, 24th was Lukas Vejdemo, the 23rd spot went to Alexander Gordin, Blake Biondi came in at 22nd, Rhett Pitlick was 21st, Joni Ikonen began the top 20, Brett Stapley was number 19, Joel Teasdale was 18th, Gianni Fairbrother was 17th, Cam Hillis was 16th on our list, Luke Tuch was 15th, Josh Brook was 14th, Jan Mysak was 13th, Sean Farrell ranked 12th, Cale Fleury was 11th, Noah Juulsen was 10th and Jayden Struble was 9th.

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That brings us another step closer to the Habs top prospect and today we reveal number 8 on our rankings, Jesse Ylonen. His rankings were pretty consistent from all our writers withSebastian High placing him 7th on his list, Scott Cowan ranking him 8th, Teddy Elliott slotting him in at 7th and me giving him the worst ranking of 10th.

Ylonen has played his entire career in his home country of Finland, so he is yet to attempt to make the transition to North America. He played the 2017-18 season in Mestis, which is Finland’s second best pro league. He scored 14 goals and 27 points in 48 games for Espoo. Following that season he was drafted in the second round of the 2018 NHL Draft with the 35th overall selection, by the Habs.

Ylonen’s production in Mestis was fine, but he really stood out when playing at the World Under-18 Championships. He was third in tournament scoring with four goals and nine points in seven games, helping Finland win a gold medal.

Ylonen would once again help his country win a gold medal two years later at the World Juniors. He played a third line role at even strength, but earned some power play time as well. He would score three goals and three assists in seven games.

After being drafted by the Canadiens, Ylonen began his Liiga career, which is Finland’s best league. He played 53 games in 2018-19 and scored 13 goals and 14 assists for 27 points. He followed that up with 12 goals and 22 points in 2019-20 with the same Lahti Pelicans team. It was a low scoring team, and Ylonen’s 12 goals put him second on the Pelicans and he was fourth on the team in points.

Ylonen has decent size at 6’1″ and 172 pounds, but he plays the game as a slick, skilled right winger who can create offence with his stick handling, passing and shot. He isn’t the fastest skater in a foot race, but he can quickly change direction and has exceptional agility which helps him create space on the ice and buy time with the puck.

Ylonen was supposed to start his North American career in March when he signed his entry-level contract and was assigned to the Laval Rocket. Of course, the AHL was then shut down because of the Covid-19 pandemic and hasn’t turned the lights back on yet.

This season, Ylonen was loaned back to Finland, but his results have not been encouraging. The 21 year old is now playing his third season with the Pelicans and he has just three goals and four points in 17 games. The Pelicans are a strong team this season and have no trouble scoring goals – aside from Ylonen.

That’s not a great sign, but 17 games of little offence isn’t enough to cancel out his solid production the past two seasons and great play on the world stage at the World Under-18 and World Junior Tournaments.

Hopefully Ylonen can start hitting the scoresheet on a more regular basis soon. It will be interesting to see how he well he can transition to the AHL level when the Laval Rocket finally get back on the ice.

He is still just 21 years old, and has a lot of skill to his game. His ability to create space and allow teammates time to get open and then hit them with a quick, crisp pass makes him one of the Habs top ten prospects. His next step is to show it at the AHL level, and we should get the chance to see that in February.