Saarelainen has taken a real step this season. After attending Tampa Bay’s development camp in late June 2025, he returned to KalPa and stayed in the men’s picture, with KalPa listing him on its 2025-26 roster and under contract through 2026. The most convincing part of the update is that this was not just survival hockey. He was still impacting games late in the year, including a power play goal against HIFK on March 10, and the offensive confidence carried into the biggest international stage available to him. At the 2026 World Juniors, Saarelainen produced six points in seven games for Finland, and coach Lauri Mikkola said after the Jan. 2 win over the United States that he had played well through the whole tournament and got rewarded for it. He still wins more with pace, pressure, and detail than with pure skill, but he looks more comfortable getting inside against men now, turning second-effort touches into actual possession and offense. The NHL path still looks like an energy forward, likely in a bottom-six role, but this season made that projection more believable and gave him a better secondary-offense argument than he had a year ago.

Saarelainen was selected 149th overall by the Tampa Bay Lightning.

June 2024 An undersized center with an unrelenting motor, a tendency to play his best hockey when it matters most, and an ability to elevate his linemates all the while facilitating their games, there’s a lot to like in Saarelainen’s game. His projection is a bit murkier than his on-ice value was this season, however. At 5-9 and lacking stand-out elite skill(s), the Finnish pivot will need to work about twice as hard to make the NHL than most of his peers, but if he does beat the odds, a team could have landed a fan-favourite bottom-six facilitator who brings exactly the same energy every single night: everything he has. (Final Ranking: 90) Sebastian High