Samu Tuomaala almost quit hockey two years ago. Now, the Finnish prospect is pushing to make the Flyers.

ALLENTOWN — This past year was a little bit up and down for Samu Tuomaala.

That’s a direct quote from the Finland-born Flyers prospect.

It started out promising and included a trip to California for the American Hockey League’s All-Star game, but the Lehigh Valley winger only registered eight points (three goals, five assists) in his last 27 games of the regular season after collecting 12 goals and 35 points in the first 42. His season then came to a frustrating end when he sustained an undisclosed injury on April 13.

“I started pretty good, and then I had some hard times when I didn’t score and I started getting pressure and thought bad things for myself,” Tuomaala said in May. “I’m pretty hard on myself sometimes if I don’t like my game, so that’s also [something] I need to work on a little bit. I have tried to work on [it] already that every year we get the up and down switch. It’s normal, especially for a young player.”

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Tuomaala spoke without the assistance of a translator to The Inquirer (something he needed one year prior) and mentioned he has a mental skills coach he has worked with on and off for four years. But the fact that he’s still playing — and wanting to play — regardless of his struggles this past season is a huge step for the 21-year-old.

Two years ago, he almost quit hockey entirely.

Drafted by the Flyers in the second round of the 2021 NHL draft, Tuomaala had the option of playing juniors in the Ontario Hockey League but started the 2021-22 season with Lehigh Valley. After two games, he headed back to Finland.

And then things began to spiral.

Despite representing his country at the U16, U17, and U18 levels — he was named an all-star at the 2021 U18 World Championships — Tuomaala was not named to Finland’s 2022 World Juniors squad.

“Then I started struggling with my Liiga teams,” said Tuomaala, who was loaned to Finnish teams Vaasan Sport and then Jukurit in 2021-22. “I didn’t make the lineups, and when I made it, I didn’t play my own game. I tried to play without mistakes, and then I didn’t try to do anything, and I played really bad. It was like a small ball rolling away. Then it continued the next year, again, I played really bad.”

Former Flyers forward Sami Kapanen has worked with Tuomaala since rejoining the organization in 2022 as a player development coach and European scout. The elder Finn had a “gut feeling” Tuomaala wouldn’t work with Vaasan Sport, as the coach there was heavily focused on a defensive game, and the youngster is an offensive-minded forward.

At the trade deadline for Liiga, Tuomaala moved to Jukurit, and Kapanen thought it would be a better fit for him under the tutelage of former NHLer Olli Jokinen. But he couldn’t find a spot in the team’s top nine as his confidence continued to wane. All the bouncing around and instability started to hinder his development.

Things only got worse the next season, as this time he ping-ponged between Jukurit’s Liiga team and its U20 squad. The junior hockey league was the same one he played in when he was 16. Now he was 19. The demotion “was a really hard time for my mind,” Tuomaala said.

Tuomaala finally found his footing when he joined Ketterä, which played in Mestis, the second-highest men’s ice hockey league in Finland. Back playing against men, Tuomaala collected 46 points (26 goals, 20 assists) in 29 regular-season games before adding another 19 points in 17 playoff games.

“Just from the first game I started finding my thing and started scoring and getting the smiley face back,” he said. “So it was a great thing for me, and it was also easy last summer to focus the next year without stressing about the hockey.”

Kapanen and the Flyers were involved in setting up Tuomaala in the second tier. The coaching staff there was better equipped to give him the time and space to develop his defensive game — Kapanen said he had been struggling with his thinking process and quickness in his own zone — while also nurturing his offensive upside.

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“He responded extremely well. And I think I saw, and kind of Samu was saying it already, that he’s having a tough time kind of enjoying the game. That he’s not scoring goals, and he’s a goal scorer who hasn’t scored more than a few goals in a whole year,” Kapanen told The Inquirer at the Flyers development camp in early July. “So he went there, and he scored some goals, and you could see that the confidence coming back. He’s holding onto the puck, he’s making offensive plays, and, next thing you know, he’s skating as he can skate. And once his offensive numbers were rising up, it was easier to kind of have him commit to the defensive part of the game.”

A guy who puts big expectations on himself, Tuomaala knows he lost his confidence and motivation but says the last year and a half has been better. He stopped stressing about hockey and started focusing on just trying his best and letting the chips fall as they may. The chips fell pretty well this past season for someone playing his first full season in North America.

“He’s a great kid. They all love him. His nickname is Santa because he’s from [Oulu] close to where Santa’s from in Finland, and they love him,” Phantoms coach Ian Laperrière said in April. “He’s got that personality. He’s got that ugly mustache that he wore all year. He’s always got a smile on his face. He’s always happy to be at the rink.

“… I don’t think he was really the sexy pick for the Flyers, but if you can hit with guys like that, your organization goes [up] quickly because nobody really expected him. If he keeps going the way he’s been [going], he might take a step, and he’s going to help the Flyers down the road. I was impressed by him.”

Facing adversity early on and coming out of it positively impressed Danny Brière. The Flyers general manager said the organization wasn’t sure where Tuomaala’s career was headed looking back on those tough years. Now he knows the youngster is equipped to face tough times. As he noted, he is “acquiring the tools, both on the ice and off the ice mentally, to deal with different situations.”

Like defenseman Emil Andrae, Tuomaala just wrapped up his first full pro year in Lehigh Valley and a season playing more games than he’s ever played in his career. He ran out of steam but showed, especially in those early games, what tools he can bring to the table.

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“I think I need to see how his offseason is [going]. I haven’t seen him a whole lot,” Kapanen said when asked if he could push for a spot with the Flyers. “I’ve been talking [to him] a few times, and if he stays healthy, we can work on the aspects of getting quicker feet. His speed and power skating are good enough, but I think he needs to get quicker on his stops and starts and cutbacks and those kinds of parts in the game that are needed at the NHL level.”

Kapanen mentioned that he saw Tuomaala’s speed and footwork slow down as the season went on but was impressed with how he dealt with a change in the game and practice schedule, not having family nearby, and the mental game. As Tuomaala learns and develops — and gets more comfortable — the one thing everyone can agree on is that he has the offensive game that can play at the NHL level. According to Flyers assistant general manager Alyn McCauley, he has “some real NHL transferable skills. The speed and the shot are very evident when he’s on his game, and he’s playing the way he needs to play.”

A right winger, there is a bit of a logjam at that position with Travis Konecny, Garnet Hathaway, Bobby Brink, and the arrival of Russian phenom Matvei Michkov. Plus, Owen Tippett and Tyson Foerster technically are right wingers, although they played most of last season on the left. Regardless, Tuomaala could — and should — push for a spot at training camp in September.

“Just play a little bit better and hopefully get the right steps closer to the Flyers,” Tuomaala said when asked what he is hoping for next season. “That’s my only goal, to play for the Flyers someday, so take the right steps that way.”